


Through the Longest Hours

by nilyn (escherzo)



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-20
Updated: 2009-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-18 16:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escherzo/pseuds/nilyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a hot summer's end, and Gerard and Mikey find themselves writing a new storyline for the comic they co-write. As the story progresses, trouble begins in their own lives, until one day they see the one thing they thought they never would: their own characters, in the flesh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The sun is already starting to set, golden light streaming into an apartment hazy with smoke. The overhead light flickers and buzzes. Gerard is flat on his back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. His cigarette is held between his teeth, nearly forgotten, and there are ashes dropping onto his faded t-shirt.  
  
Mikey watches him from the floor, quiet. Outside, there is the usual roar of the city, cars rushing by and people chattering on the street, car alarms going off in the distance, horns sounding, the rush and clatter of people going by without even stopping to look at what's around them.  
  
"We have to think of something," Mikey says finally, to break the silence, biting at a hangnail absently. "Eventually."  
  
"You're the writer," Gerard says through his teeth, and Mikey is a little glad that he doesn't have his coffee cup, because he thinks he might dump it on Gerard if he did. It's resting on the counter, empty, because they couldn't decide who was going to be the one to make the coffee, so no one did.  
  
"You like coming up with ideas more than I do," Mikey points out, rubbing at his temples. "I haven't been able to think of anything. We've got the characters, Gee. Come on."  
  
Gerard rolls over onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow, and the couch creaks beneath him. His knees are bent awkwardly and he shifts again, trying to make himself comfortable. "S'not like I'm going to think of anything you haven't already thought of."  
  
Mikey's eyebrows go up. "Try me."   
  
"Vampires."  
  
"No."  
  
"Zombies."  
  
" _No_."  
  
"Zombie vampires?"   
  
Mikey makes a face. "We did that last time."  
  
"Well, then you think of something, Mr. I-Did-Werewolves-Three-Times-Because-I-Didn't-Think-Anyone-Would-Notice." Gerard flicks ash onto the carpet, right next to where Mikey is sitting, and Mikey swats at him.  
  
"I had some variation," Mikey points out, scowling. He wonders, absently, if sitting on Gerard would help with motivation any. He deserves it.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, one of them was only sort of a werewolf, fuck off," Gerard says, sticking his tongue out at Mikey, the same way he's done since they were three apples tall.   
  
" _Anyway._ " Mikey prods at him, tempted to text Pete to make him bring the two of them coffee. It's a weekend. He is completely justified in being lazy. "If you were Bob Bryar, investigator of all things abnormal, what would you be investigating?"  
  
"Where to find some coffee," Gerard says, under his breath. "Aliens in the sewers? Baby Godzilla? Flying monkeys? Ghost rats?"  
  
" _Ghost rats?_ " Mikey's eyebrows go up. "We need to get out of this apartment if you want to write about ghost rats."  
  
Gerard grins. "Think demon cockroaches would be better?"  
  
"I am going to hit you and I am going to enjoy it," Mikey informs him. "No ghost rats, no flying monkeys, Jesus, I am never letting you watch the Wizard of Oz again, no dem—hmm."  
  
"What?" Gerard sits up, tucking his feet under him. "You've got something?"  
  
Mikey shrugs, biting his lip. It's an idea, and they've been short on them lately. He can't afford to be picky, because they need to eat, and the lights are burning out, and the freezer doesn't work anymore, and the couch is threatening to collapse under them any day now. He's half expecting Gerard to break it right now.  
  
"It's kind of cliché," he begins, even though he knows every idea they do is cliché, and that's half the fun of it. " But we could go with a regular demon, if you want. Just no cockroaches. I see them enough without you drawing them all over everything."   
  
"We've only seen  _one_." Gerard is biting the inside of his cheek like he's trying to keep himself from laughing at Mikey, and Mikey's going to make him draw something impossible, just because he can. Something impossible and complicated and annoying, like a tentacle monster, except Gerard might like that.   
  
"One was too many," Mikey says, with an air of finality. "What do you think, though?"  
  
Gerard frowns thoughtfully, picking at the threads of the couch. "It's not the most original idea in the world," he admits, but he's smiling faintly, the way he does when he gets a good idea. "It works, though. Shit, I can't believe my demon cockroaches actually got us somewhere."   
  
"They didn't. That was all me," Mikey informs him smugly.   
  
Gerard laughs. "Sure." He shifts to the other side of the couch and gestures at Mikey to come up with him and sit, and Mikey gets up too fast, feeling the stinging in his knees and the rush of blood to his head. The couch isn't going to support the two of them forever, but he's taking his moments while he has them, and he settles down beside Gerard with a soft sigh. They lean their heads together and Gerard stubs out his cigarette on the arm of the couch, flicking it into the corner before reaching for another one. He hands the pack to Mikey and Mikey hesitates for only a moment before taking one too, holding it gingerly between his fingers.   
  
Gerard lights Mikey's and his own at the same time, holding the ends together, and Mikey settles back, blowing smoke at the ceiling, pressed against his brother's side.   
  
"So," he says, "demon. What kind?"  
  
"I don't know," Gerard admits, wrinkling his nose. "I hadn't gotten that far yet. We can figure it out as we go, though. "  
  
Mikey smiles. "You just want to get to the part where you get to draw guts and gore all over the place, admit it."   
  
Gerard grins helplessly and Mikey doesn't need an answer to that half-question, because Gerard is nothing if not predictable. He doesn't know if there's going to be gore, but it makes sense, and he knows Gerard has been itching to draw some ever since he gave in on the vampire zombie issue.   
  
"We keeping Ray around?" Gerard asks, taking another drag of his cigarette.  
  
"'Course." Mikey rolls his eyes, elbowing Gerard in the side. "Why would we get rid of him? Bob needs a sidekick."  
  
"Tech guy," Gerard corrects. "He's not a superhero, even if he is fucking badass. He's better than a superhero."   
  
Mikey snorts. Sometimes he thinks Gerard has a crush on his character, which is so many levels of ridiculous he doesn't even want to start getting into them.   
  
"Yeah, yeah," he says. "Tech guy, sidekick, whatever. Either way, he's sticking around. What about Frank?"  
  
"Frank stays," Gerard says firmly. "You like him, anyway."  
  
"He's cool." Mikey shrugs. "And besides, we can have Bob blame him for causing trouble when it's actually the demon. Maybe there's an epidemic of sheep or something."   
  
"… Why would Frank be turning everyone into sheep?"  
  
"Same reason he has seventeen dogs?" The dogs had been Mikey's idea originally, a way to spite Gerard because it was Gerard's turn to make coffee and he'd taken a nap instead. He'd decided that every time someone pissed Frank off, Frank would turn them into a dog. The little, yippy dogs were for especially annoying offenders, like the guy in line for coffee ahead of Frank who wouldn't stop talking on his phone.   
  
He thinks that Frank is kind of twisted, as far as characters go, but he's never going to deny that writing a tiny hardcore dude who just happens to be the human form of Loki is fun.   
  
"I guess." Gerard looks thoughtful. "Yeah, if I woke up surrounded by sheep and I knew a trickster god, I'd probably be going to him first."  
  
"… does that happen often?" Mikey asks, smirking, and Gerard flicks ash into the tangled blonde birdsnest of his hair. He probably deserves it.  
  
"Every Tuesday," Gerard tells him, fighting to keep a straight face. "It's awful."  
  
"That explains the smell," Mikey says, under his breath.   
  
"You're the one who keeps saying the shower is haunted," Gerard points out. "Unless it's you and Pete in the shower, and then suddenly it's okay again."   
  
"Ghosts are scared of Pete. They're afraid he's going to hit on them."  
  
Gerard snorts. "I believe it. Tried with me enough times."  
  
"… Yeah," Mikey says, making a face. The silence following is a bit awkward, and Mikey takes another drag on his cigarette, trying to distract himself. "So."   
  
"Yeah." The two of them lean back against the cushions of the couch, staring up at the ceiling. There 's still more to decide, more plans to make, but Mikey's satisfied for now, and until they get coffee, they're both going to be useless.   
  
"You move first," Mikey suggests, after a moment, and Gerard doesn't even look over when he says, "No, you."  
  
"You."  
  
" _You._ "  
  
" _You!_ "  
  
"I'm calling Momma and telling her you're a lazy bum."   
  
"Yeah, and she'll just tell you you are too."   
  
Gerard elbows Mikey in the side and Mikey elbows him back, and they only call truce once Mikey starts breaking out the tickling, Gerard trying to curl up into a little ball, laughing breathlessly, his hands flailing.  
  
"I surrender," he wheezes, grinning. "Surrender!"  
  
"Where's your white flag?"  
  
"Don't have one. I'd wave my underwear but I don't think you want to see that."  
  
"No, I'm alright," Mikey says, making a face. "Surrender accepted." He reaches down to pluck Gerard's cigarette off the couch, because he's smelling burning fabric, and that's the last thing he wants, to catch on fire because he decided to take revenge by tickling.  
  
"So, what's in the peace treaty?" Gerard asks, taking his cigarette from between Mikey's fingers, even if there isn't much left.   
  
"Hmm." Mikey pauses, thinking. "We go to the studio tomorrow, at least for a little while, and you make me coffee for a week."  
  
"A  _week_?" Gerard puts on the best horrified face he can manage. "Isn't that cruel and unusual?"   
  
"Do you want me to do it again?"  
  
Gerard shakes his head, grinning despite himself. "I'll pass. And I still say it's more like a fucking closet than a 'studio'."  
  
"Bigger than this."  
  
"Yeah, and this isn't even a closet." Gerard looks around, wrinkling his nose. The apartment  _is_  tiny, everything crammed together into one tight space, the couch pressed up against the kitchen counter and the double bed they share only feet from the couch. The bookshelves are against any place they can fit, spilling over with old issues of comics and piles of books that would tip if either of them bumped them. Gerard's art supplies are strewn across what used to be a clear patch of floor, a sketchbook or five and a stack of markers, and every time Mikey gets up in the middle of the night he trips over them.   
  
The studio isn't much bigger, but Pete pays for it, mostly, even if he hardly ever uses it. It pays to have a friend with some actual money, even if it's because his parents send it. The studio's never even close to clean, but it's got a fold-out couch and a good desk to work at and Mikey's favorite coffee maker, so he's looking forward to being back.   
  
"Tell me about it." Mikey shifts and the couch squeaks in protest again. "At least there are no cockroaches there."  
  
"There might be ghost rats," Gerard says brightly. "Sneaking into the room while you're sleeping and eating your pants, or some shit like that."   
  
"Is  _that_  why yours all have holes?" Mikey asks, poking at Gerard's hip with no real force behind it. He's content to laze around for the rest of the afternoon, until he thinks of something new (like what the demon actually  _does_ , because it's a comic, not a novel, and they don't have to put in every detail, but there are only so many things he can omit before things stop making sense) or he gets tired enough to nap.   
  
He's leaning towards the nap, for the most part.   
  


  
  
Mikey wakes with a start in the middle of the night, not sure what jerked him out of slumber. He wouldn't be surprised if it was a bad dream, but he's also awoken suddenly enough to know that sometimes there doesn't need to be a reason.   
  
He stares up at the ceiling, fingers tapping against the side of the couch. The world is silent, or nearly so, closer than it ever gets during the day. He can hear his own ragged breathing, the roar of a car outside as it goes by, water hitting tile from behind a closed door. Gerard's in the shower, for the first time in at least two weeks, and Mikey smiles, letting the steady drumming of the water calm him. It's like rain against the windowpanes, constant and soothing.   
  
A car rolls by, music turned up loud enough to make the windows shake, and he rubs at his eyes, wondering how late it really is. He guesses around three, but can't be sure.   
  
The noise from the shower abruptly stops and the door creaks open moments later, Gerard padding back into bed like he's trying not to wake Mikey with his footsteps. He has a towel around his neck, but not his waist, and Mikey wants to say something to him, just to see how embarrassed he'll get.   
  
"Hey," he whispers, finally, and Gerard's whole body goes rigid.  
  
"… Sorry," Gerard tells him, and doesn't turn around, trying to inch back into bed and cover himself with a sheet. It's still dark, but the dim light from the streetlights outside and the still-lit apartments from across the way give him enough light to see Gerard's face, bright pink.   
  
Mikey smiles. "It's fine, dude. Sorry. I couldn't sleep."  
  
"You were sleeping when I went in," Gerard points out, crouched beside the bed, fumbling in the dark for his sleep pants. "You've been out since four."  
  
"What time is it?" Mikey doesn't know why he's whispering, but it doesn't feel right to be loud, not when the world around them is so utterly, strangely quiet, so quiet he can hear the buzzing of the streetlights.   
  
"Three thirty," Gerard whispers back, tugging his pajama pants up with a frustrated little noise. "Guess you were pretty tired."   
  
"It's your fault," Mikey mumbles, growing more sleep-fuzzy as he relaxes. No matter what his dream was about, Gerard is there, and that's just about all that matters to him. "Didn't make any coffee."   
  
Gerard laughs, the sound startlingly loud, tossing a sock at him. "It was your turn to make it. And I was thinking, while I was in the shower—"  
  
"We're not writing the coffee shop girl into the comic, because that's  _creepy_ ," Mikey tells him automatically, and when he makes a move to protest, adds, "But if you want background zombies, you can have background zombies."  
  
Gerard grins, quick and bright. "Nobody's better than you.  _Nobody_."   
  
"And don't forget that." Mikey's back is starting to twinge, too many hours curled up on a too-small couch, and he tries to push himself up into a sitting position with a wince. The couch sags alarmingly, and he tries not to shift around too much. There are still questions in his mind that he wants to ask Gerard, but at the forefront is worry, the concern that he won't be able to get anything out when they leave for the studio in what's now barely more than a few hours.   
  
He hesitates, trying to string together the right words in a tired brain. "Have—I was trying to think of more specifics, for the—you know. For writing. I don't have anything yet, though."   
  
"You wanna know if I have something?" Gerard guesses, and Mikey nods. "Sort of. It can't be anything serious, not at first anyway, if Bob's gonna think it's Frank's fault."  
  
"No mysterious deaths," Mikey clarifies, and Gerard smiles, continuing. Mikey doesn't have his glasses, but he can see the blurs that are Gerard's hands, gesturing as he explains. It's comfortable. Familiar.   
  
"I mean, to be honest, dude, I like the sheep idea."  
  
Mikey groans. "That was a  _joke_."  
  
"Come on. Epidemic of  _sheep!_  And then we can make it more serious, after."   
  
"I am not awake enough to be actually talking about having an  _epidemic of sheep_  in it," Mikey grumbles, and rolls over, back to Gerard. "Sheep aren't even part of Bob's job description."   
  
"If aliens in the attic or  _ghost rats_  or vampire zombies are fair game, then an epidemic of sheep is fair game. He investigates the abnormal, and if that isn't fuckin' abnormal I don't know what is."   
  
"Your face is abnormal," Mikey says, half-muffled by his face pressed into the pillow.   
  
Gerard sighs, relaxing back into the mattress. "Can we at least mention it?" Mikey wants to give in to him, but the last time he did that, he ended up having to write about half-monkey half-pony monsters that were created by a mad scientist as birthday presents, and he still has trauma from it.   
  
Then again, he's never been good at refusing Gerard anything.  
  
"Maybe," he concedes finally, and he hopes Gerard is at least grateful. He'll give in eventually, and they both know it, but he likes to think he's not that easy.   
  
Gerard grins, pleased to have gotten his way once again, and Mikey wants to throw a pillow at him. At the very least, they have two ideas, even if one of them is ridiculous. He can rest easier, knowing that, and he lets his eyes slip closed against the rough fabric of the couch cushions.  
  
"… You could get in bed, you know," Gerard points out. "I showered and everything."   
  
"Yeah, well, I didn't," Mikey mumbles, but he forces himself to sit up and stumble towards the bed, still in his jeans and t-shirt. He'd take them off, but he doesn't want to have to deal with them. He wants to sleep, and not think about deadlines and sending scripts to editors or Gerard's tendency to draw things at the last minute, because he still thinks he's in art school and capable of pulling six all-nighters in a row. All of those things start tomorrow, and he'd like his peace while it lasts.  
  
"Going to sleep?" Gerard asks softly, rolling over to face him, and Mikey nods, not bothering to open his eyes.   
  
"Night," he mumbles, drifting off nearly the moment his head hits the pillow. One arm reaches out for Gerard, pulling him close to have something to hold onto.  
  


  
  
This time, Mikey wakes to the sound of his phone going off, "Bittersweet Symphony" blaring throughout the apartment.   
  
"What the fuck," he hears Gerard say, and he's inclined to agree. He hasn’t opened his eyes yet, but it's too early to even think about it. And someone is  _calling_  him. He heaves out a sigh and pulls his pillow over his head, trying to muffle the noise, but it's no use.   
  
"Stop  _calling_ ," he snaps at the phone, as though he's expecting it to listen to him, though it doesn't. It'll stop eventually, but for now he hates it more than any alarm clock, because it's someone that wants to get ahold of him, and he doesn't want to have to deal with deadlines  _yet_. He needs at least a week or two to get back into the swing of things for that.   
  
The phone finally,  _finally_  stops ringing, and Mikey lets out a long sigh of relief.  
  
"I'm going back to sleep," he announces to no one in particular, flopping back down onto the pillow.   
  
He doesn't open his eyes again until he hears the creak of the bed and feels it dip. Gerard's getting up, and he cracks one eye, managing to get out a vague, incoherent noise of confusion. He can't see well enough to figure out what Gerard is doing, anyway, not until he gets his glasses from where they're resting beside the couch.   
  
"Pete called," Gerard tells him, and he groans into his pillow. Gerard tosses Mikey's phone over and it lands beside the pillow soundlessly. He reaches out for it, still bleary, and types out a text, knowing he's getting most of the letters wrong.   
  
'it.d too rst;u fpt thid oui vsn cpme to yhe stifio ;ater'  
  
Gerard sinks back into the mattress beside him and peers at the screen, trying to stifle a laugh. "What does that even  _say?_ "   
  
Mikey finally opens his eyes properly to read it. "Shit," he grumbles. "It's supposed to stay 'it's too early for this, you can come to the studio later.'" He's not quite sure how he managed to get it  _that_  far off, and he scowls at the tiny keys of the phone as he deletes the message and tries again, this time with a little more success.   
  
His phone buzzes a moment later. 'id bring coffee,' the message reads, and Mikey considers it for a moment, but really, they have work to do.  _Uninterrupted_  work.   
  
'some of us actually have to work, Pete.'   
  
'yeah yeah later'  
  
"He gets good coffee, though," Gerard mumbles, like he's mourning the loss of it already. "Really fucking good coffee."   
  
"We've got work to do," Mikey points out. "He'll be being distracting."  
  
"Only 'cause he keeps trying to make out with you."   
  
Mikey flips Gerard off and rolls over, facing the wall. Noon sounds good. Noon sounds like a fucking  _dream_  at this point, and he knows he's being lazy, but he doesn't care. They'll be up late. He can make up for a few lost hours.   
  
"Truth hurts," Gerard says under his breath, and Mikey can  _hear_  his grin. He closes his eyes and makes a face at the wall, because at least the wall can't make faces back. Seconds pass, and then minutes, and he comes to the frustrating conclusion that he  _can't_  get back to sleep now. He doesn't have it in him.   
  
He rolls back over. Gerard is curled up on the couch, knees tucked to his chest and a sketchbook resting against his thighs, immersed in his work. He's sketching with pencil but he has an inking pen between his teeth and an unlit cigarette tucked behind his ear, for later, and Mikey can't help but smile. He tries to slip out of bed quietly, so as not to distract Gerard, but the bed creaks as it always does, and Gerard looks up, startled out of his drawing reverie.   
  
He lets the pen drop from his mouth onto his lap and clears his throat a little. "I thought you were going back to sleep?"  
  
"Nah." Mikey shrugs. "Not tired anymore. Did you make any coffee?"   
  
Gerard jerks his head towards the kitchen. "Just made a pot. Get me some too."   
  
"What time do you want to get going?" Mikey asks him as he searches around in the bare cupboards for two mugs that are at least vaguely clean. There's one, at the back, but he has to blow the dust off of it first. The rest are in the sink, water gone grey-brown long since. He tries not to breathe too much, because then he has to smell it. He's starting to question the wisdom of suggesting that they alternate who does the dishes, because Gerard just lets them fester when it's his turn. He holds his breath and snatches one out of the water. There. Problem solved, for now.  
  
"Get going?" Gerard asks vaguely, absorbed in his work once again.   
  
"To the studio?" Mikey reminds him, filling his own mug with coffee. He knows how they both like it, and soon he's coming back with two steaming mugs, holding them carefully away from his skin. He's been burned by his own coffee more than enough for a lifetime already.  
  
"Oh. Oh, yeah." Gerard takes the mug without so much as looking up. "Let me finish this?"  
  
Gerard's barely started on the drawing, just sketched in vague outlines and half-formed shapes, and Mikey knows if he waits for Gerard to be done they'll be waiting for at least another hour or five. He taps at the sketchbook, tracing over the pencil lines with his fingers. "You're barely started," he mumbles. "You're going to be at it all day and then we won't get anything done."   
  
Silence hangs heavy between them for a moment, and then Gerard sighs. "Fine, you're right." He looks up at Mikey and sets his sketchbook down beside the couch without another word, sipping at his coffee. "You win."   
  
"I always win," Mikey tells him, his face the very picture of smug contentment.   
  
Gerard rolls his eyes but he doesn't argue, and Mikey's tempted to rub it in further, but he has to resist that kind of thing at least occasionally. He's still in his jeans, but he figures he should at least find a shirt he hasn't been wearing for a week if he's going out. No one pays much attention to them, but he'd at least like to pretend he's capable of smelling better than Gerard.   
  
He sifts through the mass of clothes at the foot of the bed, holding up each item and giving it the sniff test. Gerard lounges against the couch, watching him, until Mikey tosses a pair of socks at him.  
  
"No going out barefoot," Mikey says, not looking up, and finally finds a shirt that passes his inspection. It's black and mostly plain, but it'll do, and he slips the shirt up and over his head, making a face as the seams make a ripping sound. He inspects it carefully: not ripped, but more stretched out than he'd like.   
  
"So," Gerard says, trying to hold the coffee mug with one hand and put on his socks with the other. "Are we going to find Pete there when we get there?"   
  
"I hope not," Mikey mutters, still dressing. "He'll want to know what we're writing and probably stick around until we have something to show him." He picks out two socks—unmatched, one black and one grey and blue striped, for luck. It's an old habit, but it seems to work well enough. He's keeping it.   
  
They finish dressing in silence, Mikey fumbling around under the bed for his boots and Gerard insisting on finding the old jean jacket he wore the last time they tried writing. They both have their traditions. Jean jackets, mismatched socks, leaving salt in the doorway because it was something Gerard saw in a movie once. Ritual is comfortable, familiar.   
  
They both press a palm to the door on the way out, like a prayer, and Mikey folds his arms tight to himself to ward off the chill in the hallway. It's not heated, and though it's only August the cold goes through straight to his bones. Winter's going to come early this year. He can feel it. The hallway is musty and dim even in the morning sunlight, but he can hear the clatter of noise from the other apartments as they walk past, people waking up, arguing, clattering around with pots and pans, the spray of a shower.   
  
Their footsteps echo as they climb down the stairs and Mikey grips the railing tight to steady himself, just in case. He only fell once, and Gerard was there to catch him, but he remembers the feeling of it, the way his stomach dropped out and his mind blanked. A flight, then two, then three, and finally they are on the ground floor, stepping out into the late summer sunlight. The street is a blur of noise and color, and Mikey always takes a moment to adjust to it.   
  
They take the rest of the steps down to the street like overexcited children, two at a time, and Gerard can barely keep up with Mikey once he gets going. "Hey, wait up," he calls, and Mikey just grins at him and says, "Maybe you should stop being old; you could keep up." He keeps going.   
  
Gerard only catches up to him once he gets to the sidewalk, and he's a little out of breath. "Don't  _do_  that, shit," he wheezes out, and Mikey pauses to let him catch his breath.  
  
"It's all the smoking, dude," Mikey informs him. "I'd beat you in a race any day."   
  
Gerard swats at him with no real force behind the motion, and he stops to light a cigarette, blowing the smoke in Mikey's face as retaliation. Mikey scrunches up his face and tries not to sneeze, but he's smiling despite himself. It's going to be a good day. He can feel it in his bones.   
  
They set off down the street together, not bothering to keep any real distance between them. The crowds are out this morning, people going in every direction without so much as looking up to see who they're walking beside, heads down, cellphones pressed to ears. Gerard and Mikey wind through the crowd, dodging tourists wheeling suitcases. It's nearly noon, and the sun is high.   
  
When they finally arrive at the subway, they're out of breath. Gerard leans against Mikey, drawing in shallow breaths and listening to the other trains screech to a stop at the station. Their own comes in a few minutes later and they squeeze on next to at least a dozen others, holding on tight to the poles in the middle of the train as it starts to move again. Mikey's never been the best at balancing, and he clings tight to the pole until he can get himself stable.   
  
Once they're above ground, he watches the scenery rush by without much interest—it's nothing he hasn't seen before and his eyes glaze over a little. He's still tired, enough that his movements feel clumsy and his eyelids heavy, and Gerard gives him a concerned look as he sways. It doesn’t matter; none of the other passengers look up from what they're doing, but he feels awkward all the same.   
  
The train finally shudders to a halt at their stop and Gerard takes Mikey's hand, leading him out through the crowd pressed together at the door. The studio is only a short walk from there, and they weave in and out of the crowd.  
  
"C'mon," Gerard says, and Mikey follows faster. This time he's the one falling behind, and he knows Gerard is going to make sure he gets reminded.   
  
They take the elevator, not the stairs, even though it's old and creaky and Mikey is always convinced that one day they'll go up in the elevator and the cables will snap and they'll fall to their deaths. It's not the way he'd want to go, if he could pick, and the elevator is stuffy inside, lingering smells of perfume and sweat and old Chinese food. He holds his breath and grips onto the wall, watching the numbers change.   
  
"We'll be fine," Gerard tells him, but Mikey knows Gerard is more paranoid of untimely death by falling elevator than he is. They make a fine pair, trying not to be too obvious about the way they twitch every time there's the slightest noise, the smallest creak.   
  
The elevator dings to a stop and Mikey relaxes, a little. He's got to start taking the stairs, he decides, even if it's six floors up, because it is not worth the stress of taking the old elevator all the time.   
  
"I swear to god that thing is haunted," Gerard mutters as he steps out, glaring back at the elevator. "Haunted by—" He pauses, thinking, and finishes lamely, "something."   
  
"You just don't like it," Mikey says, quirking an eyebrow.   
  
"And you do?"  
  
Mikey shakes his head. "Hate that thing."  
  
"It might be haunted," Gerard says, in an attempt to be reasonable. "You never  _know_. There could be zombies and shit at the bottom… but we haven't died yet."   
  
Mikey snorts. "That's comforting. Yet?"  
  
"It could happen."   
  
"Next time, we are taking the stairs," Mikey says firmly, unlocking the door to the studio. It looks basically the same as they've left it, except there are two Starbucks cups sitting on the desk at the far corner of the room.  
  
"Pete's been here," Gerard points out, stating the obvious, and Mikey climbs over stacks of papers and art supplies strewn across the floor to get to them. "Still warm," he says, grinning triumphantly.   
  
Coffee in hand, they settle into the studio once again. Gerard still has his supplies from the last issue they did, sketches and half-done pages that Gerard thought better of partway, test pages for new pens. There's a stack of crumpled-up pieces of notebook paper in the corner, next to the overflowing trash can: story ideas that were rejected, pages that didn't sound right. A desk takes up one corner of the room, a drawing table near it, and on the other side a pull-out couch that they've spent more than one long night on. The studio is big enough that they can move around easily, even if they have to avoid the debris on the floor, and Mikey takes another look around and sighs, settling down onto the couch. It's good to be back, he decides. Even if it has been only a week or two since they finished the last issue.   
  
"Where do you want to start?" Mikey asks, looking around. He's tempted to get some of the trash out before they do, so he'll have somewhere to get rid of the pages that didn't work out, but he figures there might be something useful among the crumpled-up papers. It's safer to keep them.   
Gerard shrugs and takes a sip of his coffee, fingers tracing over the pens he used last time, still scattered across the drawing desk. He treats them like old friends, gentle and careful, testing each one in turn, lines of black and grey and colors in patches on the scrap pieces of paper on the desk, a mass of colors, and then on his arm, snakes of blue, red, grey. Mikey watches out of the corner of his eye, trying to find where his papers are. Another ritual.   
  
"From the beginning," Gerard says, finally satisfied, snapping the cap back onto the last pen. "What happens first?"  
  
That, Mikey doesn't know. Not at first, and he spends a long moment just thinking, shifting from one foot to the other, arms crossed.   
  
"Little things," he begins, frowning. "Things you wouldn't notice at first." Freak storms, things Bob sees that he shouldn't, omens. Mikey is thinking of a hundred different things all at once, insignificant things that could  _work_ , and it makes his head spin.   
  
"And then an epidemic of sheep?" Gerard asks, and Mikey snorts.  
  
"Rabid petting zoo animals?" Mikey counters, because then Gee can have his sheep and Mikey can have some semblance of a normal,  _sane_  reason for it. Demons are always a better explanation than 'oh my god, my brother has lost his mind, and he is the only one I have to bounce ideas off of.'   
  
"Little Johnny never should have fed those ducks," Gerard says mournfully. He ducks his head, hiding his smile from Mikey. "Yeah, stuff like that."   
  
Mikey nods, scribbling furiously onto the first scrap piece of paper he can find that isn't already covered in scribbles, doodles, or vaguely obscene notes of Pete's, every idea he can manage to get out before it slips free of his mind again. They're half-formed and vague, but he and Gerard are getting somewhere, he can feel it.   
  
"So, first off, Bob hears about some petting zoo massacre?" Mikey asks, and Gerard thinks for a moment before nodding.  
  
"Sounds good." He tosses out a line or two, and Mikey's face lights up. He's writing fast enough that his wrist is starting to sting, and he writes like he thinks—jumping from thought to thought without connections, so it only makes sense to his mind—and Gerard's, because Gerard always gets him.   
  
They continue on until Mikey's stomach is growling too loudly to ignore, just tossing ideas back and forth, banter with the ease of knowledge that they have something they can work with, that they're not wasting their time. The sun is low by then, sky turning a smoggy, muted red as it dips below the horizon. Their coffee cups sit abandoned at the edge of Mikey's desk, empty and one with bitemarks all around the rim—Gerard's, another one of his nervous habits. Mikey leans against the foldout couch and watches Gerard against the opposite wall, the way he's trying not to stumble even as his gestures get expansive and overexcited.  
  
"I could eat a horse right now," Mikey groans, slumping down onto the couch. "I'm so damn hungry."   
  
"Tell Pete to bring us something," Gerard says, flopping down beside him and lighting his sixth cigarette of the day.   
  
"You want to put up with him when he comes over?" Mikey asks, raising an eyebrow. "You keep saying you don't like him."   
  
Gerard shrugs. "If he's got food, I don't care. And coffee. Need more coffee."   
  
"You always need more coffee," Mikey points out, conveniently forgetting to mention that he lives, breathes, and dreams about the stuff himself. He fishes his phone out of his pocket and taps out a message to Pete, looking up at Gerard as he types. "What do you want him to get us?"   
  
"Don't care." Gerard's organizing his pens, stacking them by color and how much life they have left in them. He isn't looking down at what he's doing, so Mikey isn't sure how he's managing. By feel alone, it looks like, and Mikey watches his fingers trace over the pens, moving one after another.   
  
'coffee and Chinese and G might even put up with you,' Mikey types, and then waits, phone resting on his knees. As it buzzes, it slides down into his lap and Mikey reaches down for it to read it.  
  
'if I do can I get a kiss' it reads, and Mikey rolls his eyes at it, even if he knows Pete can't actually  _see_  the face he's making.   
  
'yeah. kiss my ass,' he types. 'come on over.'   
  
Gerard and Mikey are curled up on the couch together, sharing a cigarette and trading ideas half an hour later when there's a knock on the door. Mikey gets up slowly, not wanting to disentangle himself from his brother just yet, not when he's finally getting comfortable. When he looks through the keyhole—and he's always a little afraid to, having seen more than one horror movie where someone gets stabbed in the eye through one-- it's Pete, food and coffee in his arms, and that's definitely worth getting up for.   
  
He unbolts the door, trying to wrench it open before he realizes he hasn't unlocked it yet. He shakes his head at himself, unlocking it, and this time the door gives, though still not without a struggle.   
  
"Door one, Mikey zero," Pete says cheerily, stepping into the apartment, arms laden. Their coffee cups are tucked into the crook of one arm and the boxes of takeout Chinese in the other, and Mikey doesn't know how Pete's made it this far without dropping anything.  
  
He takes the coffee out of Pete's hands first, before Gerard can descend upon it. He's had more than one spill from Gerard grabbing at cups of coffee Mikey has too fast, and when he walks over to hand Gerard's cup to him, he holds it away from himself, just in case.   
  
"Awesome," Gerard breathes, cup gripped in both hands. He takes a long, blissed-out sip, and Mikey turns away, back to Pete. "So," he begins.  
  
"No 'I love you, Pete, you always bring good things'?" Pete asks, tapping his foot, shit-eating grin firmly in place. He hasn't handed over the food yet, and Mikey is not above resorting to violence, if violence extends to throwing chopsticks at Pete's head.   
  
"Until you give me that shit, no," Mikey tells him. "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse. Or a Pete."   
  
"Kinky," Pete says, waggling his eyebrows, and Mikey mimes strangling him until he finally hands the food over. Pete didn't get anything for himself, but he never does. That's what stealing Mikey's is for.  
  
Gerard coughs meaningfully from the couch. "Are you two done?"  
  
"Yes," says Mikey, in unison with Pete's "Never."   
  
Mikey hands Gerard his carton and settles down on the couch beside him, leaving enough room for Pete to squeeze in by his side. It's a tight fit with the three of them, and Mikey shifts uncomfortably, stuck between Gerard and Pete, who sprawls out as much as he can and completely fails to get the hint. He's humming something softly as he reaches over and opens up Mikey's container, stealing a piece of sweet and sour chicken with his fingers. Mikey pauses, and then stares over at him.  
  
"… Are you humming Can't Touch This?"   
  
Pete puts on his best innocent face. "Sure you're not hearing things?"  
  
Mikey rolls his eyes and clutches his food a little tighter to his chest, away from Pete. He gets rice on the front of his shirt as he tries to eat and his wrist twinges from the awkward angle he's trying to use the chopsticks at, but if Pete's going to steal his food, he figures he might as well make him work for it. It's only logical.  
  
Pete makes a face and leans over, elbowing into Mikey's space and ending up half in his lap, and Gerard's watching the two of them with raised eyebrows. He's scooted as far away from the two of them as possible, pressing himself against the side of the worn couch, and the faintly disturbed expression on his face makes Mikey laugh even as he's elbowing Pete in the ribs.  
  
"Get off," he says, still laughing, and he ignores Pete's answering pout. "Fine,  _fine_ , you can have some."   
  
Pete does victory guns with his fingers and takes another piece, smiling smugly at Mikey. "This is the start of something beautiful. I can feel it."  
  
"Oh, just eat your food." Mikey rolls his eyes and tries not to notice that Gerard is laughing at them, one hand pressed over his mouth to stifle it.  
  
Pete doesn't stay long after they eat, because Mikey wants to get back into the swing of work, and he swats at Pete every time he tries to loom over his shoulder, to catch a glimpse of what he's working on. He finally makes a face and pokes Mikey, saying "Hey, I'm going, don't miss me too much" and turns to go.  
  
"Don't worry, I won't," Mikey calls after him, but it's said fondly. Pete turns and flashes him a grin, closing the door behind himself.  
  
Mikey looks to Gerard then. There's only a page, and it's half-formed scribbles rather than a real script, but it's something. Words on the page that actually are  _going_  somewhere, and no words need to be said between them, just a look, as he passes it over.   
  
Gerard's eyes skim down the page, and he smiles when he gets to the bottom. He takes out a pen and writes  _this is only the beginning_  in thick, sloppy letters in the margin, and that's that.   
  
"It's good," he confirms, answering Mikey's unsaid question. "Really fucking good."   
  
Mikey smiles.  
  


  
  
They don't notice the setting of the sun until it's already too late to go home. The sky is blue-black and the streetlights are out, pinpricks of light against the darkness. Cars are still rushing by, but people are leaving the streets. The constant buzz of chatter has faded, conversations here and there punctuated by car horns and the screech of tires.   
  
Mikey doesn't know how late it is, exactly, but he can feel the ache of night settling into his bones, and Gerard keeps yawning in midsentence. He knows they're going to sleep in the studio tonight. He doesn't like to, not exactly, but it's grown more familiar, and it doesn't have that itch of  _wrong_  about it that sleeping in a strange place does, like it used to.   
  
"What time is it?" he asks, rubbing his eyes. There are no clocks, but his phone's sitting on his desk, and Gerard reaches for it with another yawn.  
  
"It's one AM, shit," Gerard manages, scrunching up his face. "I hate sleeping in here."  
  
"It's not so bad." Mikey shrugs and starts taking the cushions off the couch to pull it out. He moves mechanically, forcing his body to cooperate with him even when it doesn't want to. "Least we don't have to sleep on the floor."   
  
"Makes me feel so much better, thanks." Gerard snorts and moves forward to help Mikey, the two of them unfolding the bed together. The sheets are discolored and they reek of sweat, but at this point Mikey's too tired to care and he collapses onto the thin mattress without hesitation, springs squeaking.  
  
He's only dimly aware of Gerard crawling onto the bed next to him and lifting his head to slide a pillow underneath, sliding his glasses off, and then nothing else, already taken by sleep.   
  


  
  
His sleep is fitful, and when he wakes, it's to Gerard shaking him.  
  
"Jesus, Mikey, are you okay?" Gerard asks, leaning over him. "Talk to me." His hands are clutching Mikey's arms tight, tight enough to hurt.  
  
"… wha?" he asks, still fuzzy with sleep.  
  
Gerard swallows hard, looking at him. "You were screaming."   
  
It's still dark in the studio, and he can only see the dim outlines of Gerard's face, but he can hear the worry in his voice. He notices, in a distant sort of way, that he's shaking.  
  
The dream comes rushing back to him all at once, storms and blood and chaos, walking down a dark street only illuminated by lightning splitting the sky, the mind-numbing panic of  _I can't find Gerard_ , coming face to face with something else entirely, something with bright, glowing eyes and a body so twisted, so contorted, that Mikey shudders with revulsion even at the memory. It knocks him back and he grabs at Gerard, pulling him close without another thought.   
  
"Are you okay?" Gerard whispers into Mikey's hair, arms wrapped tight around his middle. "What was it?"  
  
"Just a dream." Mikey shakes his head, burying his face into Gerard's chest. His voice is hoarse. "Nightmare. Whatever."  
  
"You wanna talk about it?"   
  
Mikey swallows, trying to find enough moisture in his throat to speak. "I couldn't find you. I was lost, and I couldn't find you, and everything was dark, and something had  _happened_  to you, and there was this thing—" He breaks off, shuddering again. "You know that one thing I showed you, the video of the robot dog? How it was alive but it wasn't and it made your skin crawl, just looking at it? Because it wasn't  _right_. Because it moved wrong. It was like that. And it had these eyes that looked right through you."  
  
"Hey," Gerard says softly. "Just a dream. That's all. It's just me. I'm here, and it's just us chickens. Promise. If there are any monsters I'll beat 'em before you ever see them."   
  
"Like you'd be able to do anything," Mikey murmurs, but he smiles anyway. "Thanks."  
  
"It's what I'm here for," Gerard reminds him. "I've got you."  
  
"Yeah," Mikey says quietly, eyes slipping shut. "Love you."   
  
"Love you too, kid." Gerard holds him a little tighter. "C'mon, it's late. We should go back to sleep."   
  
"Mm," Mikey mumbles in agreement.   
  
He sleeps.   
  


  
  
The next morning, he opens his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. They've been staying at the apartment over the past two weeks, and the cracks in this plaster seem almost novel. Some of them are new. Most of them aren't. There's no sun streaming in on them; today is a dull slate-grey, and he can hear the first clink of raindrops coming down against the window.  
  
Gerard is still half on top of him, snoring softly, and he smiles, ruffling his brother's hair fondly. He's glad to be here, to see the light of day. Sometimes he needs reminders that dreams aren't real. They're alone in the apartment, and they're going to get back to work, just like always. He's going to write out a half-assed script and Gerard is going to pick it apart until they've got something. They're going to send it off, Gerard is going to doodle for a few days, and then they'll get it back covered in notations. Then, Gerard will start drawing.  
  
He always looks forward to that part the most. Seeing what he writes come alive and off the page, seeing nothings become somethings. He takes a deep breath and stares at the ceiling for a while, until his eyes hurt, feeling the weight of Gerard bearing down on his chest. The rain drums down outside, harder and harder, until it's a roar, and Gerard sleeps on.  
  
"Hey," he murmurs finally, pushing at Gerard's shoulder. "Hey, wake up, come on, we have work to do. Come  _on_ , asshole, wake up."  
  
"What?" Gerard opens one eye and looks down at Mikey. He grins and rolls over onto his side, stretching out and giving Mikey a chance to breathe again. Mikey's not a big fan of breathing with a hundred-something pound weight on his chest. Not that he does it often, but often enough.  
  
"Trying to crush me to death in my sleep," Mikey says, half-laughing. "I see how you work."  
  
"I'm trying to take over this operation," Gerard informs him solemnly. "And you… well. We know what has to happen to you for that to happen."   
  
"Dream on. I'll poke your eyes out with my elbows."  
  
"I believe it. Skinny little fucker. Come on, let's get some breakfast."   
  
There's no food in the studio—at least, no food Mikey trusts in the studio. He's never put much faith in expiration dates, and he doesn't want to check them, most of the time, because he really,  _really_  doesn't want to know things like the fact that Gerard's snacks of choice have probably become sentient.   
  
"Where do you want to go?" Mikey asks, reaching around for his glasses until his fingers close around them.   
  
Gerard slides into focus just in time for Mikey to see him shaking his head. "I'll bring you back something. Keep working, ok? I'd tell you to come with me, but we might as well at least pretend we're getting some fucking work done."   
  
"Fine, fine, leave me to rot," Mikey says, shooing him, and swings his legs over the side of the bed. He wobbles as he stands, reaching out a hand to the mattress to steady himself. "And get some fucking coffee," he adds as an afterthought, rubbing his bleary eyes.   
  
He flips on the light at his desk as he settles down, more habit than anything else. It's bright, and it makes his eyes sting. It's still too early, he decides, and he hasn't even bothered figuring out what time it is yet. Not that it matters, really. The pen doesn't feel right in his hand yet and he grips it tighter, staring at a blank page.  
  
He writes "Bob goes" and then scribbles it out, twice. That isn't what he's looking for. The first page sits next to him and he stares at it like he expects it to give him some wisdom of where to go from there.   
  
It doesn't help much. He flips it off and stares down at the blank page again. Nothing. He leans back in his chair, chewing on the end of the pen thoughtfully. Gerard will be back soon, and he'll be damned if he has nothing to show for the time he's spent so far. All he's got so far is the setup, families at the petting zoo when the animals unexpectedly go rabid. He doesn't even think he likes it, mostly because he knows it's just an excuse for Gerard to draw blood spatters all over everything, as per usual.  
  
He starts to write.  


  
View of man walking down empty street in the rain, hands in pockets. Head down. Smoking. Old, seedy neighborhood, dirty brick buildings. 

Present day

Stops to look in a window. TV is on and in view, playing the news. 

REPORTER   
Authorities are doing what they can to help families cope after this tragedy. No word yet as to what will happen to the animals, but there are reports that they are being tested for rabies. In other news, farmers across the country are puzzled as sheep populations grow at an alarming rate. Here's Jim Ambrosia, coming to you live from Bangor, Pennsylvania for more details.

REPORTER TWO  
Thanks, Taylor. They are calling it an epidemic. Sheep populations have, by some reports, doubled or even  _tripled_  overnight. Farmers are baffled. No explanation seems in sight as scientists struggle to find the cause…

Laughs and keeps moving, taking a drag of his cigarette. 

BOB  
(to himself)  
Sheep? Frank, man, you've fucking lost it if you're getting your kicks from  _sheep_. 

TEXT BOX  
I figured it was just him being his usual self. Figured I'd go talk to him, later, get him to set things right before it got out of control, but that was all. Just Frank up to his usual tricks. 

Pain in the ass having Loki for a friend, as always. Sticks his nose where it doesn't belong, makes a cow or two fall from the sky if life is getting too stale. Just stupid stuff. Harmless stuff. Something like this was right up his alley.

  
  
The door opens and Mikey looks up, startled out of his writing haze. "Gee?" he asks, pen still sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he turns around.   
  
"No, a zombie from the local mall," Gerard says, failing horribly at keeping a straight face, as per usual. "Yeah, it's me. Come get the food before I drop it everywhere. The cockroaches don't deserve pancakes."   
  
"Better not be any cockroaches," Mikey mutters, getting up from the chair with a groan. Gerard hands him a Styrofoam container with a little M drawn on it in fingernail, and Mikey grins, settling down on the edge of the bed to eat. "So if you're a zombie from the mall, what does that make me?"  
  
"Shitty at barricading your door?" Gerard offers, sitting down beside him.   
  
"Cruel," Mikey tells him, and then opens the container. Chocolate chip, which are basically all he'll eat in the pancake department. He hasn't had them in ages.   
  
"Mostly cruel," he amends, and takes a bite.   
  
"I'm sorry the truth hurts," Gerard says around a mouthful of pancake, syrup sliding down his chin. "But if it saves you from the zombies…"   
  
"Yeah, yeah." Gerard is oddly serious about zombies. Neither of them would be able to use it properly, but he has a chainsaw stuffed into a closet at their apartment, for emergencies. Mikey has Gerard draw Bob's apartment having the same thing sometimes, because even if they can't use the thing worth shit, at least their character can.   
  
"Get anything done?" Gerard asks, and Mikey nods, mouth full. "Spill syrup on it and I eat your brains," he says after a moment, swallowing. "Zombie boy."   
  
Gerard swats at him with a sticky hand and gets up to go look at it. "Fuck, you put in the sheep part! Way cooler than freak storms, man." He grins, hands flailing a little in excitement like he can't quite help it.   
  
"Dork," Mikey says affectionately. "Come back and finish your food so we can get back to it. And please tell me you got coffee."   
  
"You think  _I'm_  gonna forget coffee?"  
  
"If you get distracted by ogling the coffee shop girl, then maybe."   
  
"I only did that once," Gerard grouses, but he comes back over and takes a bite or two of his pancakes. "So, next we've got him going to visit Frank?"  
  
Mikey frowns, thoughtful. "That or dropping in on Ray. I don't know yet."  
  
"Flip a coin?"  
  
Mikey snorts. "Great way to decide. No, come on. Either he goes to Frank to ask what's up with the sheep or he goes to see Ray and hears about everything else."  
  
"Frank, then," Gerard says. "So then he can go to Ray after Frank's said he's not involved with the sheep thing and then he can find out about everything else, which is probably also not Frank's fault. Does that make sense? I think that makes sense."  
  
"In you-logic, yeah," Mikey nods, getting up to get his coffee. "Okay."  
  
Gerard makes a face. "What do you mean, me-logic?"  
  
"Nothing," Mikey says innocently, settling back down on the bed. "Help me out with the next page? We can't really do anything until the script's done, and I don't want you wasting away from boredom or anything."  
  
"Like I do that."  
  
"No, you just spend the whole time doodling instead. Come on, man."   
  
Gerard heaves out a sigh and gets up. "Okay, okay. I'm coming, I'm coming." 


	2. Chapter 2

A week passes before Mikey even notices. He's laying on the bed, wide awake and staring wide-eyed at the cracks in the studio ceiling. He hasn't slept for three days, and he's not sure if it's all the coffee or that he's concentrating on work or just that he has nightmares every time he tries to sleep. They're getting progressively worse, and he's afraid to blink at this point. So he just stares at the ceiling instead, trying not to blink, arms held stiffly at his sides. He doesn't know what time it is, what day it is, and he feels like he's floating out of his skin.   
  
He reaches for a pack of smokes and lights one, smoking just to give his hands something to do besides clench and unclench in the sheets. Gerard's out getting breakfast, or at least that's what he remembers, but that might have been yesterday he's thinking of. He hasn't wanted to eat in a day or two, especially not breakfast.   
  
It's raining again, a torrential downpour against the windowpanes, drumming out a beat that he taps out against the sheets without even thinking. "Christ," he says hoarsely, swallowing down a cough. "I need a break." He's talking to the ceiling, and he doesn't care.   
  
The lights are off and the window casts only dim light, even at midday, and he freezes in place as he hears the lock turn in the door. He just hopes it's not Pete. He doesn't have the energy to face Pete at the moment. His phone's been turned off for four days because it was a distraction he couldn't afford.   
  
The door creaks open and he hears Gerard whisper, "Mikey?" nearly drowned out by the sound of the falling rain, voice unsure and cracking. He doesn't sound like himself. Somewhere in the back of Mikey's mind, he wonders if something is wrong. Then again, he's not exactly the champion of functioning at the moment, either.  
  
"Yeah?" Mikey asks, and Gerard visibly starts.   
  
"Fuck. Sorry. I thought you were asleep."  
  
Mikey laughs weakly. "Like I've been sleeping. Get in here already, come on."   
  
Gerard sets down his bag by the door and comes over, settling down next to Mikey on the bed. "You've gotta sleep sometime, kid," he says quietly, crossing his arms behind his head and staring up at the ceiling with Mikey. "Don't burn yourself out."  
  
"I'm not," Mikey snaps, wincing at himself the moment the words leave his mouth. "Sorry. You haven't been sleeping either, though."   
  
"More than you, at least," Gerard says. He plucks the cigarette from between Mikey's fingers and takes a drag, closing his eyes, and the two of them lay there in silence, listening to the rain falling and the cars rushing by on the street below. Mikey sighs and lets his eyes slip closed for the first time in hours, at least, and he reaches out to squeeze Gerard's hand.   
  
"We're a mess, aren't we?" he asks, and Gerard nods a little without looking over. "Shit. A week and a half in and we've already lost our fucking marbles."   
  
"We'll get it," Gerard reassures him quietly. "Do you want any of the breakfast shit I got before you go back to work?"  
  
"Not hungry," Mikey says automatically, and lights a second cigarette. "It's morning?"  
  
Gerard nods, getting up. "It's eight, I think? Maybe nine. You didn't notice the sun come up?"  
  
"Wasn't paying attention."   
  
"Jesus, Mikey." Gerard stares, and Mikey can feel his gaze even when he closes his eyes. "Go to  _sleep_ , fuck, we can lose a few hours."  
  
"I'm not gonna die of sleep deprivation," Mikey snaps, rolling over away from Gerard. "Fine, but you have to come up with the ideas I would have if I wasn't asleep. I think better when I'm too awake. Like… my brain just connects better, you know?"  
  
"No it doesn't," Gerard mutters, so quiet Mikey only catches snatches of the words. "Sleep."  
  
Mikey lets his eyes close and the exhaustion hits him, just-like-that, and he's asleep before he manages to get out the words he wanted to say.   
  


  
  
Another dream. He's almost growing used to them by now, and these days, when he falls into them, he can look around and know  _I'm dreaming, it's just a dream_. Still, it feels real, and he doesn't know what's happening because the world around him is blurred, dark, but the shadows keep moving and it's not because of the shadow he casts. Something is moving in them, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Someone is behind him, or above him, or just outside the reach of his vision. He doesn't know, exactly, just knows that he can't turn around and face it or something terrible will happen. His gut churns, and he takes a deep breath, forcing himself to turn around, because whatever it is can't be worse than the unknown.  
  
He wakes up screaming.   
  
"Mikey," Gerard manages, and he's sitting on the bed next to Mikey before he can so much as blink. "Jesus fuck, breathe. It's just me. It's okay."  
  
"Fucking  _dream_ ," Mikey spits, the ache of too-little sleep still in his bones. His eyelids feel heavy. "How long was I out for?"  
  
Gerard looks at his watch and sighs. "Couple of hours. Maybe three."  
  
"Shit." Mikey lets his head fall back onto the pillow, staring up at the ceiling again. "You win, dreams. I'll get back to work."   
  
"If you're screaming about having to get back to work, that might be a problem," Gerard says, smiling faintly.   
  
"Nah." Mikey lets himself smile too. "Just stupid stuff. Shadows and creepy shit. I'm getting up." He pushes himself up into a sitting position, groaning. He's still in the same jeans he's been wearing for two weeks, and they feel like they're superglued to his skin at this point.   
  
"Gimme some—" He fumbles for the right word for a second. "Coffee. Not working without coffee."   
  
"Doesn't sound like much is working for you," Gerard says dryly. "'Specially your brain."   
  
Mikey half-heartedly throws a wadded-up sandwich wrapper at him. "Yours never works, you'd know."   
  
"Abusing your brother is not the answer," Gerard informs him, dodging it easily. "But there's coffee on your desk. Who knows, I might drink it if you don't get there soon enough."  
  
"Drink it and I eat your face," Mikey says, yawning mid-sentence.   
  
"Yeah, yeah." Gerard waves Mikey in the direction of his coffee, and Mikey stumbles over to it on unsteady feet. Three hours barely took the edge off of his exhaustion, and he feels ready to collapse at any minute again. It's only the knowledge that he'll have another nightmare if he does that keeps him going until he settles down into the chair, coffee cup in hand.   
  
"I'm not gonna steal it if you don't drink it fast enough," Gerard mutters, watching Mikey down the coffee like it's water. It's not even cold yet, and from the face Mikey is making…  
  
"Shit," Mikey says, setting the cup down and scowling at it. He's talking strange, nearly lisping. "Burnt my tongue."  
  
"Told you."  
  
Mikey rolls his eyes. "Gloat all you want, just get over here. Lemme at least get an hour or two before I crash again."   
  
"Someday, I'm gonna get you a caffeine IV," Gerard promises, peering down at the scripts in front of them. There are all but a few pages done of the first issue, though Mikey hasn't typed any of them up yet, just hastily-scrawled words on notebook paper for the moment.   
  
Mikey ignores him, shuffling through the papers. "Ok, so. We've got the petting zoo incident at the beginning, then Bob hearing the news report about the sheep and deciding to go talk to Frank, then introducing Frank and where he lives, then the two of them talking about it, with Bob accusing him before even really saying what it's about, then Frank saying he doesn't have anything to do with it, then Bob getting all weirded out, then Frank volunteering himself to come along, then the two of them going to Ray to figure out what's up, then Ray mentioning the whole petting zoo thing, showing them tapes or something—or Tivo, whatever, anyway. And then Bob has him look into other stuff while he and Frank go off and do whatever--and you're gonna have to help me on that part, because I don't know what they'd go off and do, you know? Go sit in some shitty bar somewhere?--and then Ray calls the two of them and starts talking about what he's found, and Frank figures out that they're looking for a demon. Are we gonna have them check into the petting zoo? Visit it and whatnot?"  
  
Gerard shrugs. "Don't see why not. Only we should probably do that next issue, so they actually have something to do. Or else, they go there and things get crazy and shit and we stop there."  
  
"You do like things getting crazy," Mikey says, and then stops, turning towards the window. "It stopped raining?"   
  
"'Bout an hour ago, Captain Observant." Gerard smiles. "Seems like it's been raining forever."   
  
"It pretty much has." Mikey looks out at the sky, still dark and foreboding, and he shivers. The storm has made things cold, and even his bones feel chilled. "Freak storm. Guess that's August for you, though."   
  
A strange look crosses Gerard's face, but he shakes it off. "Guess so. Come on, just a little more and then we can email the script in. It'll be sweet."  
  
Mikey tears his eyes away from the window and back down to the script, frowning at it. "Alright, alright. So." He chews on the end of his pen contemplatively. "If you were to find something freaky in a petting zoo, what would it be? No saying my face."  
  
"… damn," Gerard says, trying to suppress a grin.   
  


  
  
The sky is starting to darken by the time they take another break. Mikey's stomach is growling, even if he doesn't have any real desire to eat, and the two of them have gone through all the coffee in the studio. He shivers, arms tight around himself, staring out the window instead of down at the script he doesn't want to think about. He needs a break. Gerard, too, Gerard who's sprawled out spread-eagled on the floor, cigarette held between his teeth and eyes closed. He looks tired.  
  
"Hey," he says softly, looking down. "Want me to go get some more coffee? You order dinner, I can go out this time."  
  
Gerard grunts in affirmation, not bothering to open his eyes. Mikey hasn't been out of the apartment in at least a few days, and he has to hunt around for his jacket, socks, his boots. He tugs the laces into place with shaky fingers and tucks a packet of Gerard's cigarettes into one jacket pocket, his wallet into the other.   
  
"Don't forget the keys," Gerard calls from the floor, and Mikey starts, trying to remember where he put them. "Back pocket, weirdo," Gerard adds.  
  
They are, in fact, in Mikey's back pocket. "How the hell did you know that?" Mikey asks, staring.  
  
Gerard opens his eyes and wiggles his fingers, grinning. "Magic. Now shoo."   
  
Mikey laughs and tugs at the door for a bit, until it gives.  
  


  
  
He takes the steps, this time. They're old and grimy and he goes slow, clutching the railing, but the last thing he wants is to meet an untimely doom in an elevator when he's by himself. The faster he takes them, the more awake he can make himself feel, clear his head enough to at least think about where he's going to go. There's a convenience store just down the street, but further than that there's a place with proper coffee, the kind Gerard isn't going to compare to the dishwater left to fester in the apartment.   
  
By the time he's made it to the first floor, he's made up his mind well enough. "Just coffee," he reminds himself, walking out onto the rain-slick sidewalk. "Nothing else. No getting comics for Gee or music magazines for me."   
  
He pulls his coat tighter to himself, trying to suppress a shiver, and he lights a cigarette as he walks, breathing in deep. It warms him, but only a little, and he keeps his head down, tucked into himself as he passes others on the sidewalk. No one looks at anyone else passing by, just keeps their head down and minds their own business, briefcases in hand or headphones in ears, and Mikey likes that just fine. He isn't in the mood to talk to anyone, anyway.  
  
Something occurs to him with that thought, and he steps to the side to pull his phone out of his pocket. He's had it on silent for most of the week, and while he isn't keen on talking to Pete on this little sleep, he doesn't want to have missed anything important. He flips it open and waits, wincing as he takes in the dozen or so new texts and the missed calls.   
  
One of the missed calls is "Momma – Home." It's from five days ago.  
  
He has a feeling there are going to be angry voicemails when he gets around to checking those. He turns the phone off.  
  
There's time to deal with that later.  
  
Head down and his phone shoved back into his pocket, he makes his way down the street again. Someone bumps into him and yells something, but he isn't paying attention, and he doesn't bother stopping. He hums Bittersweet Symphony, quietly, because it feels appropriate to, and hopes he's going down the right road. There's no way to be completely sure, since he's not looking up, but it feels right.   
  
He stops for only a moment to glance up, and he sees his reflection in a grimy storefront window. "Shit," he breathes.  
  
He's a mess. Gaunt, with dark circles under his eyes and a wild-eyed, half-dazed expression. Messy hair all over the place, from days and days of running his fingers through it in frustration. Clothes that've been worn for days. It's obvious how little he's been sleeping, how little he's been eating. His fingers are still shaking like they were earlier.  
  
It's like looking at a ghost. He almost doesn't recognize himself, and he has to tear his eyes away and keep moving or he'll be there staring at himself the whole day.   
  
"I look like a hobo," he murmurs, half-fascinated and half-horrified. Gerard looks bad, but he looks worse, and by far. He's thankful that people keep to their own worlds because it means no one has to see him. It's not being ashamed, not exactly. He just knows that he looks like hell.   
  
He rounds the corner and looks up to find himself in front of the coffee shop he and Gerard go to when they're doing work in the studio. It's a comfortable, homely place, dimly-lit and warm, and he sighs, letting himself relax as he walks in, the bell on the door jangling.   
  
There's no one in line in front of him, so he goes up to the front straight away. "Hey," the barista says, and he nods at her. "Been staying up a lot lately?" she asks, peering at his face, and he wants to turn away.   
  
"Yeah, I guess," he says awkwardly, hunching in on himself. "Had a lot of work to do."  
  
"I know," she says, starting to make coffee without even so much as asking him what it is he wants. "Your brother comes in here every other day. You look worse than him, though, kid. Should give you decaf or something."  
  
"Ugh." Mikey makes a face. "I don't want to sleep. No decaf."   
  
"Okay, okay." She sets a bag of coffee grounds on the counter, the kind Gerard always buys, and then two steaming cups next to it. "I just did what he usually gets you two, is that ok?"  
  
Mikey nods. "It's fine. How much?"  
  
"Eight bucks." She takes the money from him with a little smile at the corner of her mouth. "I didn't think zombies had cash."   
  
Mikey grins before he can suppress it. "If being tired means you're a zombie, you must get a lot of the undead in your store."  
  
"Oh yeah. A regular army," she says, handing him two dollars. "Better go. It's supposed to rain later, and going from zombie to drowned rat wouldn't be much of an improvement."  
  
He grins and stuffs the bills into his pocket, taking everything else in one armful. "Thanks—"  
  
"Alicia," she finishes for him.  
  
"Alicia." He nods to her and then makes his way out the door, a smile still lingering on his face.   
  


  
He's halfway to the studio when the rain begins. At first, it's just a drop or two on the tip of his nose and on his arms, something he can write off as just the wind blowing raindrops off leaves on the trees. Then another drop comes down, and another, and within minutes it's pouring, soaking him to the skin as he dashes back to the apartment, glasses covered in droplets and hair clinging to his face. "Shit," he says, and then says it again. His jeans are soaked through and he splashes through the puddles, water soaking into his boots.   
  
He pulls open the door to the apartment complex with one elbow and then slumps against the door as soon as he's inside. Water's dripping off him and forming a puddle all around where he's standing, and he can barely see through the droplets on his glasses. He shakes his head like a dog to dry himself and starts the slow trek up the stairs, squeaking with every step. It's a long way up, and it feels even longer with the burning of his thighs.  
  
All he can do when he gets to the door is knock an elbow against it. He can't pull it open. His arms are too tired, and he's still clutching the coffee cups for dear life. "Gee," he calls. "Gee, it's me, come on. Open up."   
  
There's no answer. Mikey sighs and sets the coffee down so he can pull his key out of his pocket. Gerard must be asleep, he figures as he wrenches the studio door open. Sure enough, Gerard is there, sprawled out on the bed. He keeps twitching, rolling one direction and then the other. Mikey frowns and tiptoes into the studio with the coffee in his hands, toeing his boots off as he goes. He isn't sure whether to wake Gerard or not.  
  
"Gee?" he asks uncertainly. There's no reply--but Gerard is practically thrashing, and Mikey has seen that often enough to know what it means. "Gee," he says, louder. "Gee, wake up. Come on."   
  
Still nothing. Mikey walks over, leaving a trail of water droplets in his path. He shakes Gerard's shoulder. "Come on. Open your eyes. It's just a dream. Come on."   
  
Gerard whimpers and clutches at Mikey's hand, but his eyes stay closed. Mikey wants to hug him, but he knows he'd be getting Gerard wet.  
  
Then again, maybe that doesn't matter so much. He sits down on the edge of the bed and pulls Gerard tight to him, arms wrapped around his back. "Shh," he murmurs, squeezing. "It's okay."  
  
"… Mikey?" Gerard asks, and Mikey lets out a sigh of relief. "S'at you?"   
  
"Yeah. I'm back."  
  
"Good," Gerard says shakily. "You're all wet."  
  
"It's raining again," Mikey says quietly, looking at the raindrops pounding against the windowpane. "Started when I was on my way back."   
  
Gerard forces himself into a sitting position, shaking his head to clear his mind of sleep. "Shit. Hate dreams like that."   
  
"… you're having nightmares too?" Mikey asks, staring down at the sheets. It feels hard to speak, like he has something caught in his throat.   
  
Gerard looks away. "I'm fine."  
  
"You're  _not_  fine. I know what fine looks like, and you're not fine."   
  
"Like you would know fine if it bit you."  
  
"Shit, Gerard, if you've been having nightmares this whole time too, the least you could have done was  _tell_  me so. Don't you think it's weird?"  
  
"Think what's weird?" Gerard asks, frowning.  
  
"How long? For you, I mean."  
  
"A while." Gerard shrugs, looking away again. "It's not the same, Mikey, I'm not waking up screaming like you are or anything like that. Just having bad dreams, that's all. I'm fine. What kind of coffee did you get?"   
  
"Whatever the coffee chick said you usually got. Ally or something. Don't change the subject."  
  
"Mikey, I'm  _fine_ ," Gerard stresses, getting up abruptly. "It's you we should be worrying about." He reaches out to take his cup and stops, Mikey's hand on his arm.  
  
"Don't," Mikey says quietly, and Gerard just shakes his head.   
  
"You don't have to worry about me," he says. "I swear, you don't. I mean, fuck, I've had worse dreams."   
  
"If you're sure." Mikey releases Gerard's arm with a sigh. "Just—I don't know."  
  
"Yeah," Gerard says, because Mikey doesn't even need to use  _words_  when he's concerned--he gets it.  
  
"Oh yeah," Mikey says, smiling a little. "I turned on my phone while I was out."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You're listening to the angry voicemail from Momma with me."  
  
Gerard grins. "Sweet."  
  
Mikey sets his phone in the middle of the bed and dials voicemail, turning it to speakerphone so Gerard can hear too. He gets through the messages he has saved as fast as humanly possible, and even then it's not quite fast enough. Gerard's face goes red. "It's—" Mikey starts to explain, but Gerard holds up a hand.   
  
"Trust me," he says. "I really don't wanna know. Just keep your creepy voicemails to yourself. Especially if they're from Pete."   
  
"That wasn't Pete," Mikey says, making a face. He doesn't bother elaborating on who it  _was_.  
  
"Then I definitely don't want to know. How many do you have on there?" Gerard asks, staring at Mikey's phone like he's expecting it to attack him.  
  
"We're almost there."  
  
"Good."   
  
They both sigh with relief when they hear "One new message" and Mikey grins. Their mother doesn't call often, and when she does it's because they've forgotten to for roughly the past century.   
  
Sure enough, the message starts with, "Are you two  _dead_? I swear, I get called less than that one friend of yours, and by now I think he's forgotten your name. Make Gerard listen to this with you too. Maybe then one of you will actually remember to call your poor mother. What are you doing? Are you trying to hide secret children? Dating anyone? Eating enough? Gerard, make Mikey eat something, or I'll come down there and do it myself, because he is so goddamn skinny someone will knock him over and he'll just snap in half—"   
  
Mikey smiles. It's like a bit of home, and it's comforting. It's helping both of them. He can tell. Gerard looks more relaxed and he isn't shaking anymore, both things Mikey counts as good. He reaches over and squeezes Gerard's hand, meeting his eyes. "You ok?"  
  
"Feeling better than I was," Gerard says, half-listening to the phone message.   
  
"—and your father says hello too, by the way, and you should call him too sometime, otherwise he might forget he has children and go off and have a midlife crisis, or I might, so you should  _call_  us. Anyway, I think—fuck, I'm burning the kitchen down, so I should go. Love you both. Bye."   
  
"Good," Mikey says. "I can work with that."   
  


  
  
"You know," Gerard says, "I sort of figured they were going to be talking in the zoo, not in a bar." He and Mikey are perched on the bed together, Mikey's laptop on the bed in front of them. Mikey pokes at him, but it doesn't offer much distraction. "But no, seriously," Gerard continues, "I already had a picture for what was going to happen, you know?"   
  
Mikey rubs at his temples. "Gee, he's an editor. He edits. It happens."   
  
Gerard makes a face, scrolling down to read the offending part again. "Fuck, now I'm going to have to figure all of that out. New scenery and everything."  
  
"You haven't actually started drawing anything yet," Mikey points out, laying back. His portion of the work is done for the time being, unless he wants to get a head start on the work for the next month. He can't do the lettering yet, since Gee doesn't even have things penciled, so all there is is more planning.   
  
"It's the principle of the thing," Gerard says. "Oh well. Going to stare at me working all day, or what?"   
  
"Only when you actually start working." Mikey smirks a little and Gerard musses up his hair, grinning as he does it.   
  
"I'm going, I'm going."  
  
"Hope so. It's like we have a deadline or something."   
  
Gerard grins, wry. "Something like that. Just means you're on coffee duty now, since I'm the one who has to stay up and work."  
  
"What, you're not going to let me help?"  
  
"Yeah, but there's only so much you can do. And I'm out of cereal. Go get stuff."  
  
"So demanding," Mikey mutters, but he gets up anyway, stretching. His back cracks and he winces, limping forward for a bit. He hasn't been up and about in a while. At least a day or two, and it feels longer than that as he goes hunting for his boots again. They're still damp, and he makes a face as he slides them on. His coat is nowhere to be seen, but the sky is clear and bright, for the first time in days, so he figures he can go without it. It's still August, the last remains of summer but still summer nonetheless.   
  
This time, he takes the elevator. It's partly to prove he can take it by himself, and partly because he doesn't quite feel up to walking the six flights down, but he still grips the wall tight at every slight noise, holding his breath for as much of the journey down as he can manage. He hasn't been sleeping again, and when he steps out of the elevator, he nearly stumbles, gripping the wall tight to hold himself up. His knees feel weak and his head is heavy.  
  
He shakes his head to clear it. It doesn't help.   
  
The late morning sun makes his eyes sting, and he raises his arm to try and block it out, stumbling forward into the light. The streets are abuzz with noise, people jostling past each other, and he keeps his head down and his hands in his pockets as he heads down the street. All of a sudden, he shivers, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. It feels like there's someone watching him, someone who isn't just part of the mass of the crowd.  
  
He turns around. There's no one watching him, no one that stands out, and yet he can't shake the sense of  _wrong_ , like ants under his skin.   
  
He shakes his head and turns back, walking faster, eyes fixed to the pavement below his feet. His heart is beating faster and he tries to take a deep breath to clear his head but the heaviness behind his eyes remains. His eyelids slip shut for a second and he clenches his teeth and tries to keep them open. The ground beneath his feet is unfamiliar, and he raises his head to see an unfamiliar street, one he's alone on. The prickling feeling is back, and he rubs the back of his neck, frowning.   
  
It's as he turns around to go back the way he came that he sees it. Just out of the corner of his eye, something moving past him, fast enough to be nothing but a dark blur. His head whips around, but there is nothing there, and he swallows hard, staring at the empty street.   
  
"I need some fucking sleep," he mutters, trying to quell the sense of panic bubbling up. A car goes by behind him and his heart leaps, and when he looks down at the end of the street, he thinks he sees someone there, just for a moment, but when he blinks they're gone. He turns, heart pounding.   
  
He starts walking back the way he came, faster and faster until he's sprinting back to the main streets. More than one person is staring, but he doesn't care, keeping his head down and his hands shoved into his pockets. "Fuck," he breathes, hands clenched into fists. "It's all in your head. You're just tired. Tired and seeing things, that's all."   
  
It doesn't sound very convincing, even in his own head.   
  
He goes the rest of the way on autopilot, not even thinking about where he's going, just  _going_ , afraid of what he'll see when he stops. He recognizes someone in the store, but doesn't say anything, and he keeps to himself, speaking as little as he has to. He isn't sure he'd recognize the sound of his own voice, and he doesn't want to show that he's scared. He can't even quite admit that to himself yet. It's just shadows in the streets, shadows and nightmares, and yet he's on edge, watching his every step as though there's someone behind him, following in his footsteps. Like the dream he had once, where there was something behind him but he couldn't turn around for fear of what it was.   
  
"Sir?"  
  
He looks up, startled. The cashier is looking at him with a strange expression on his face, holding out the receipt.  
  
"Put it in the bag," Mikey says, keeping his voice as flat as possible, and he can feel the cashier staring at him as he leaves. He knows how bad he looks, how he must look to someone on the outside, and he grabs his bags and heads for the studio, trying not to look behind himself after every corner he turns. There's never anyone watching, as far as he can tell, but it makes him feel better to look, less like he wants to crawl out of his own skin.   
  
He's nearly home when he sees something again, just a flash out of the corner of his eye. He turns around so fast he hits the ground, pain shooting up through his leg, knees bent awkwardly.   
  
"Oh, for—"  
  
This time, there is something there. There's a cat, darting in and out of the shadows, and Mikey lets out a long sigh of relief. It mewls at him pathetically but he shakes his head, pushing himself back up onto his feet. He can't be around cats, not unless he wants to put up with Gee sneezing the whole night.  
  
"Shoo," he hisses at it. "Go. Go back where you belong."  
  
Its back arches and it hisses at him, crouching like it's ready to spring forward, and Mikey takes a step back and then another.   
  
All of a sudden, it whines and backs down, retreating back into the shadows. He's so filled with relief he doesn't even think to question why, until he feels the prickling at the back of his neck again, the feeling of being watched. He wasn't the one who scared the cat away.   
  
"Fuck," he says weakly, and runs. He doesn't look up for anything, doesn't turn around, just ducks his head down and runs as fast as his still-stinging legs can carry him. Around one corner and then another, and he's standing in front of the apartment complex, out of breath and panting. His lungs burn and his legs feel like jelly, but he doesn't stop to take a breath until he's inside the complex doors.   
  
The long trek up the stairs feels like it takes a century, and he looks behind him with every flight of steps he goes up, but he doesn't see anyone behind him, and he doesn't feel like someone is following him any longer.  _Safe_. With that thought, he grips the railing tighter and drags himself the last few steps to the studio's door.  
  
"Gee?" he calls, still out of breath. "Open up."   
  
There's the sound of the doorknob rattling, and then the door swings open. Gerard is standing there, still in his pajamas, hair wild. "You ok?" he asks, taking in Mikey's flushed face and panting breaths.  
  
"Ran part of the way back," Mikey explains, and tries to think of a way he can tell Gerard what happened without saying what it was, exactly, because he doesn't have a good explanation for why he feels like he's being watched. He just doesn't. "Some cat tried to attack me."   
  
"… You ran the whole way back because you were running from a cat?"  
  
Mikey scowls. "I wasn't running from a cat the whole time. It was about a block from here. You know, in the alley by that old drugstore. Anyway, I got your shit."   
  
"Better not have gotten cat hair on it," Gerard tells him, opening it up. "Fuck yeah. Thanks. I'll go out next time, if you need somebody to protect you from the big bad cat."  
  
"What are you going to do, sneeze at it?"   
  
Gerard looks thoughtful. "Maybe. Are you sure you're okay, dude? You look kind of shaken up."   
  
Mikey nods, even though it's making him a little sick to his stomach to lie about it. He can't tell the truth though, because the truth doesn't make any  _sense_ , and he knows Gerard would get carried away. He'd think—Mikey doesn't know what he'd think, exactly, but he wants to try and stay reasonable about this. He's getting paranoid, that's all. Paranoid and sleep-deprived and he can't trust his eyes.   
"I'm fine," he says, and the words are bitter in his mouth. "What do you have done?"  
  
Gerard raises his eyebrows, but doesn't say anything about the obvious lie. "I've got some of the rough penciling stuff done for the first two pages?" he offers, gesturing Mikey over to his desk with a jerk of his head. "They're not amazing or anything, but they're still pretty fucking rough, so."   
  
"Wasn't expecting a masterpiece," Mikey says, shrugging. He had a vague sort of picture of what the pages would look like as he was writing them, and Gerard's gotten them closer than he'd anticipated. He always manages to impress Mikey that way. They don't quite share brains, even if it feels like it on some days, but Gerard does have a sense of things the same way Mikey does. Mikey doesn't need to put in much to describe what's going on, because by the time he's done, Gerard already knows all the details, and they're the right ones, the ones Mikey was envisioning.   
  
"That one's kinda deformed, though," he adds, peering down. "What is that supposed to be?"  
  
"A goat?" Gerard ventures, frowning.   
  
"When was the last time you saw a goat?" Mikey asks, trying to suppress a smile.  
  
"When was the last time  _you_  did?"   
  
"More recently than you, apparently."   
  
Gerard makes a face. "Fine, fine, I'll fix it." He scribbles a little note next to it saying 'fix or else!' and leans in closer. "You're sure it looks wrong?"  
  
"Pretty sure."   
  
"If you say so." Gerard settles down into his chair and reaches for a fresh piece of paper, twirling his pencil around before finally setting to work. He motions to the first two pages. "Make sure there's nothing weird in them? I don't want Brian bitching at me for accidentally giving someone three arms like I did last time."  
  
"You mean correcting," Mikey says, rolling his eyes a little. "Editor. He edits, remember? And wasn't that person supposed to have three arms?"   
  
"Nah, that was the other guy. I just got in the habit of sticking the extra arm on so I put it on the wrong person."   
  
"Nice." Mikey kicks off his boots and sits down on the edge of the bed, legs crossed as he looks over the two pages. It's light enough that he can't quite tell what's going on, or couldn’t if he didn't know what was supposed to be, but it works well enough. It's a good distraction from earlier, and he can feel himself loosening up, the tension in his shoulders dissipating. He's almost relaxed enough to sleep. Almost.  
  
"You still having nightmares?" he asks, offhanded, more curious than anything else, and he can see Gerard's body tense up.  
  
"Nah," Gerard says, but it feels forced. "I'm ok."   
  
 _Are not_ , Mikey wants to say, but if Gerard's trying to hide it from him there's probably a reason, and he doesn't feel like pushing right now. Maybe Gerard just doesn't want to think about them. Mikey can't blame him there, if his dreams are anything like Mikey's are. It's not something he'd wish on anyone.   
  
Mikey rests his head in his hands and takes a deep breath, trying to clear his thoughts.   
  


  
  
He doesn't like being alone in the studio anymore. The nightmares are worse, and he's sleeping maybe an hour a night at best. The shadows all feel like they're crawling towards him, the cracking plaster on the walls swims when he stares too long, and every creak makes his heart pound.   
  
Gerard is out, and Mikey's settled onto the edge of the bed, cross-legged, looking over the last few pages Gerard left him. Even the rustling of the paper seems too loud, but Mikey peers at the panels anyway, holding them close to get a good look. He has a notebook beside him, full of hastily scribbled notes in red pen, "change that, that looks weird," "where the hell is the reporter's head?" "I don't think that's supposed to look like that. CHANGE." "stop drawing people with no clothes before you draw the clothes on, you keep making Bob naked." "if that's on purpose I will end you."   
  
He chews at the tip of his pen and traces his fingers over the pencil lines, so absorbed in what he's doing that he nearly falls off the bed when Gerard opens the door. His pen falls out of his mouth.  
  
"Jesus, you scared me," Mikey yelps, looking up.  
  
Gerard's face is sheet white. "I am not going out again," he says fervently, and collapses to the floor, barely inside. "Jesus fucking Christ."   
  
"What happened?" Mikey asks, crawling off the bed towards Gerard. "Hey. Hey, snap out of it, talk to me."   
  
Gerard shakes his head. "You wouldn't even fucking believe me." He stares at his knees, eyes wide. "I think I’m going crazy. I'm not even joking."   
  
"You're not crazy, Gee."   
  
"I saw—" Gerard cuts himself off, shuddering. "I am seeing things I am not supposed to be seeing, and that is all I'm saying."   
  
"Join the club," Mikey mutters. "I saw someone a few days ago that I swear to god I'd seen in the obituaries. I think. Only for a second—I mean, I’m probably just imagining it, because we're not in fucking Dawn of the Dead, and nobody's walking the earth that shouldn't be. Things are fucked up, but not that fucked up. Sure it wasn't just your mind playing tricks on you?"   
  
"Damn sure," Gerard says, nodding fiercely. "I mean it, though. I'm not going back out. I got—we're a little low on money now, but I got enough to last us a while, because if I have to go back out into that I swear to god I will commit suicide via shitty elevator."  
  
Mikey blanches. "Gerard, stop it."   
  
"Yeah, you're right, shitty elevator isn't much of a way to go."   
  
Mikey is torn between hysterical laughter and breaking down himself, so he just holds Gerard tight until he stops shaking. He doesn't know what's wrong with them anymore. Whatever it is, he can't keep doing this, and if it means the two of them holing up in the studio and never coming out, so be it. He'll do it.   
  
"I looked over your pages," he says in a hoarse whisper. "C'mon." He gestures towards his notes on the bed, but Gerard won't budge. "Please?"  
  
Gerard shakes his head fiercely and Mikey sighs, kissing his forehead lightly and pulling back to grab his notebook from the bed, papers fluttering to the floor in its wake. "Here," he says, holding it out to Gerard and Gerard finally,  _finally_ looks up. His eyes look bloodshot, and his fingers tremble as he takes the notebook.  
  
He looks at the words on the page like he's not really seeing them, and Mikey closes his eyes. "Gee, how much have you been sleeping?"  
  
Gerard shrugs. "I don't leave him naked on  _purpose_ ," he grumps, deliberately not answering Mikey's question.  
  
"You do it often enough," Mikey says finally, because it doesn't sound like he's going to get much else out of him.  
  
"He's the main character. It happens. This is it though?"  
  
Mikey nods. "I've got one more page to look over and then you're good. The scanner still working?"  
  
"Haven't checked." Gerard motions towards the laptop that's pushed to one side of his desk. "I'll look over the rest and go fix your naked Bob issues, you get the scanner working. Last time it kept getting stuck on that one picture, and—"  
  
"I swear to god, I have no idea what that was about," Mikey says defensively, remembering and turning red. "It wasn't any picture I recognized."   
  
"Mm, sure." Gerard waves him off and takes a deep breath, fumbling in his coat for a cigarette to calm himself as he works. "The tattoos? I know a drawing of—"  
  
"… Gerard, if Pete wants to use his studio to scan shitty sketches of himself naked, it's not like that's my fault."   
  
Gerard says nothing, but a smirk is curling at the corner of his mouth as he lights his cigarette, fumbling with the lighter.   
  
Mikey presses the power button on the laptop and nothing happens. He closes his eyes and silently prays to every deity he's ever heard of, pressing it again. Still nothing. Even plugging it in doesn't seem to be making any difference, and that's just his luck. "Gee?" He looks back at Gerard, trying to quench the worry low in his gut. "Gee, the laptop won't turn on. Did anything happen to it?"  
  
Gerard looks suddenly, intensely embarrassed. He mumbles something Mikey doesn't quite catch, face red, and Mikey frowns.  
  
"What?"  
  
"… spilledcoffeeonit."   
  
"You  _what_."   
  
"It wasn't on  _purpose._ "   
  
"Goddamnit, Gerard," Mikey mutters, head in his hands. "So much for not leaving the studio. I'm gonna have to go take it to get fixed." He mutters, 'idiot' under his breath and for one uncomfortable moment doesn't feel bad about it at all, even though he knows he means it.   
  
He unplugs the laptop and makes a face at it as he closes it, shaking as though it will somehow cooperate if he does. "Sorry," he says finally, staring down at the ground. He hasn't looked at Gerard, but he can feel the hurt, the confusion, and even if some small, nasty part of his mind doesn't care, the rest of him still does.   
  
Gerard shrugs, an odd tone to his voice. "Was my fault."   
  
"I—yeah." Mikey frowns, trying to think of the address of the repair shop he knows. He's never been there, just heard of it in passing. "Where was that one place?"  
  
"Dunno. It's not far, though, I think."   
  
"Thanks, that helps." Mikey shakes his head, mostly at himself, and shoves the laptop into its case, wanting to be out of the apartment already, away from Gerard, because everything he's saying is coming out wrong. He barely has his shoes on as he stumbles out the door, and Gerard watches him go, still and silent.  
  
"Don't get lost," he says finally, looking away.  
  
Mikey stares down at the carpet. "I'll try. And. Sorry. Just need to get some sleep. I'm not mad at you."   
  
"Yeah, you are. Go." Gerard waves him off and Mikey goes, because he doesn't know what else he can do.   
  
The door shuts behind him with a hollow thud.  
  


  
Mikey leans against the closed door, sighing. "What the fuck," he whispers, to no one in particular. "What the fuck." The laptop case is heavy in his hands, and he wants to run away, run from this  _thing_ , whatever is making everything wrong, and never come back, and at the same time he just wants to curl up in a corner, hiding under the blankets with Gerard and telling ghost stories so he'll have something to be scared of that's not the real monsters in the dark.   
  
He doesn't move until he hears Gerard get up.   
  
The hallway is deserted, and Mikey doesn't know what time it is when he starts down the stairs, trudging down them one at a time. It might be night, or morning, or noon. He hasn't been paying any attention.   
  
Rain is drizzling down as he steps out, and he swears, pulling his hood up and running through the drops. The raindrops blur his glasses and the sun is gone, dark streetlights and neon signs cutting through the blackness of the storm. Lightning streaks across the sky, illuminating everything for a split-second, and Mikey whirls around, staring behind him. But there's no one there, even if he thought he saw a reflection in the glass of the storefront he passed. He shakes his head and keeps moving, head swimming, and he doesn't even remember getting on the bus, too lost in his own bleary head. It's cold and drafty inside and the chatter is almost too much, so he keeps his head down even as someone sits down next to him.  
  
There are mutters around him, and some part of him thinks they're directed towards him, but he can't make any of them out. It's just a wall of noise, nothing more.   
  
The bus screeches to a halt and he looks up, startled. The repair shop is around here somewhere, he knows, and he stumbles out the door, trying to get a sense of the surroundings. Everything looks different at night. The whole district is a muted grey-black with neon green and blue and yellow. Everything looks the same.  
  
"Hey," he asks the nearest person he can find. "Hey, isn't there a computer shop around here somewhere?"  
  
"Fucking bums have computers now," the man mutters, and Mikey flushes. He points and Mikey nods, stutters out the most gratitude he can manage, which isn't much, and sets off, staring down at his soaked-through jeans and worn hoodie.   
  
The shop is tiny, and Mikey tries to sneak in without attracting too much attention to himself, but the bell on the door dings as he opens it. "Hey," a voice says, and he looks up. The man at the counter smiles, waving him in. The man at the counter who—  
  
Mikey stops dead in his tracks.   
  
"Oh, God," he whispers, trying to will his brain to believe that he's not seeing what he's seeing. That it isn't real. That it's just him seeing things again, because he hasn't been sleeping.   
  
Even when he pinches himself it doesn't go away.  
  
"Ray?" he croaks.  
  
The man frowns. "Do I know you from somewhere? Come on, man, you're soaked, you don't have to run right back out."   
  
"So your name is Ray," Mikey clarifies, and the man gives him an odd look.  
  
"Last I heard, yeah."   
  
Mikey's never been in this shop before, but he's seen that face. He's seen it in countless sketches Gerard has done, he's seen it penciled in and erased and inked, he's seen it saying his words.   
  
He's looking at his own character.   
  


  
  
"Hey.  _Hey_."   
  
Mikey can't look Ray in the eyes. He can't acknowledge that he's real. It's not  _right_. Ray doesn't exist. He's someone Mikey made up, and yet here he is, working at a computer repair shop, trying to get Mikey's attention.  
  
"Here," Mikey says, holding the laptop up to Ray. He's still staring resolutely at the floor, and his hands are shaking. "My brother spilled coffee on it and it won't turn on."   
  
"I can see what I can do," Ray offers. "… Is the floor really that interesting?"   
  
"Sorry. Lights are too bright," Mikey lies. "Eye infection, they're really sensitive."   
  
"Oh, sorry. If you can just give me your info so I can get it back to you… shouldn't be more than a week. Three days, maybe?" 

  
Mikey nods, trying to stay calm because if he doesn't, he's probably going to start screaming. He gives his information mechanically, not even quite processing what he's saying, and he thinks he might have misspelled his name. He doesn't care.   
  
He runs all the way back to the apartment, drenched by the rain.  
  


  
  
Mikey pounds on the door until his knuckles feel scraped and bloody. "Gerard, open  _up_!" he yells, and finally Gerard opens the door, staring at Mikey with wide eyes.  
  
"I just—" Mikey begins, and can't even get the words out at first. "Gerard. I."   
  
He takes a deep breath and tries to fight down the nausea that's been building inside him ever since he walked into the computer shop. "Gerard, I saw Ray."   
  
"You've been looking at him all afternoon," Gerard says with a shrug, gesturing towards the paper, but there's something in his eyes, something that tells Mikey he knows that's not all there is to it. He's holding onto that something.  
  
"No, I mean I  _saw_  him. In the flesh. Living and breathing and I swear to god I was not dreaming and I pinched myself and he didn't go away. He's the guy working at the shop I took the laptop to."  
  
Gerard swallows hard. "Mikey, that's not funny."   
  
"I'm not joking."   
  
"Please. Just. Please, tell me you're just messing with me, fuck." Gerard sits down heavily on the edge of the bed, staring down at the floor.   
  
"Why would I be messing with you?" Mikey asks hoarsely. "Why don't you believe me?" He sits down on the bed beside Gerard, trying to calm his thudding heartbeat. It's too much. It's all too much.   
  
"I. Because I saw Frank," Gerard whispers, closing his eyes. "The last time I went out."   
  


  
  
Mikey's heart lurches.  
  
"You  _what_."   
  
"I saw Frank," Gerard repeats.  
  
"Saw him where?"  
  
"Went by a park when I was going to get food. He was walking his dogs. All eighteen of them."   
  
"You're sure it was him?"  
  
Gerard gives Mikey a Look. "Mikey, I draw this guy for a living. I know what he looks like. It was Frank, all right."   
  
"I. What the hell does that even mean?" Mikey asks, glancing over at Gerard with scared eyes. "We've got our own damn characters walking around in front of us like they belong here. They're not supposed to be real. We  _made them up._ "   
  
"I know, I know. At least we haven't seen Bob."  
  
"Yet."   
  
"Christ, Mikey, don't make me think about that."   
  
"We're gonna have to think about that," Mikey says, feeling sick. "It's real, or else we're both losing our minds."  
  
"But." Gerard frowns. "Mikey, we've written them before, and they've never showed up before. It doesn't make any  _sense_."   
  
"I know."  
  
"We can't—" Gerard stares down at the ground. "We can't really do anything. We can't make them go away any more than I could make you go away. And we have to go back out and see Ray again or we're never gonna be able to send in my pages, and then we'll have no money and we'll starve to death in this shitty little apartment."   
  
There's fear in his voice. Mikey feels like it's all either of them have these days. "Hey," he says quietly. "Um."   
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Let's go hide under the covers," Mikey offers, squeezing Gerard's hand. "It'll help."  
  
"That's my line," Gerard tells him, but he tugs the blanket free of the mattress anyhow, pulling it over the two of them. Mikey curls up underneath, and Gerard holds him until his shuddering breaths calm. It's warm and dark, and Mikey can't see anything except for the dim outline of Gerard's body. He closes his eyes.  
  
"We're gonna be ok, right?" Gerard asks.  
  
"Yeah," Mikey murmurs against Gerard's shirt. "Hope so."   
  
The rain drums down outside, keeping a steady beat against the windowpanes, and the thunder booms, shaking the panes. "Once, there was…" Gerard begins, telling his story between crashes of thunder, his voice quiet but growing stronger.   
  
Mikey lets himself smile, listening.   
  


  
  
They're not okay. Mikey grows more sure of that the more time they stay inside the studio. They're barely working, barely eating, not sleeping, and if he has to keep listening to Gerard's nervous chatter he feels like he might snap. He can feel it under his skin, barely-concealed annoyance thrumming through him. He doesn't want to be, he knows Gerard hasn't done anything wrong, but it doesn't matter. It's too much closeness for too long.  
  
"We've gotta go out and get the laptop back."   
  
Gerard is sitting at his desk, staring at the ceiling aimlessly, and Mikey is lying on the floor, curling and uncurling his fists. He knows. He doesn't want to hear it.   
  
"You go," he says, looking over at Gerard.  
  
"You already saw Ray. You can deal with seeing him again. I'm not going."   
  
Mikey grits his teeth. "I'm not going." Gerard tenses, glaring up at the ceiling, and there's a long, uncomfortable pause before he speaks. This isn't going to end well. Mikey can feel it already.   
  
"Fuck you, someone has to go."   
  
"And it has to be me?"  
  
"It makes more sense if it's you." Gerard gets up, settling down on the floor beside Mikey, and Mikey props himself up on his elbows. "Come on. I'll—"  
  
"You'll  _what,_ " Mikey snaps.   
  
"I don't know, something, I'll make it up to you, but I am not fucking going out again."  
  
"And you really think I want to?"  
  
"I know you don't want to." Gerard takes a deep breath. "I don't want to either, but somebody's got to, and since you've already seen Ray, I think it should probably be you. That's all."   
  
"I don't care. I'm not going. I'm not five years old anymore, Gee, I don't have to listen to your fucking ideas because you know better than me, and of course it's a good idea to jump down the stairs, you're older, so you know, right? Didn't get me very fucking far back then." Mikey gets to his feet, trying to calm himself down. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.   
  
It doesn't help.   
  
"I'm not telling you to jump down a goddamn flight of stairs." Gerard gets to his feet too, and Mikey steps back, away from him. There's not very far to go. "I'm telling you to go out and pick up a laptop. It's easy. And we're not gonna get very far without it."   
  
"If it's so easy, you do it."  
  
"No. I already told you, I'm not going."   
  
They're not like this. They don't act like this, not with each other. Not this bad, at least, and Mikey's blood is roaring in his ears. He's not going out again. He already had to face that once, and he's not doing it again, because it was hard enough to deal with the first time. He's not. He's  _not_.  
  
"I'm not going. I don't care what you do, I'm not going."  
  
Gerard grips his shoulders tight, holding him where he is. "Mikey, please."  
  
" _No_."   
  
Gerard pushes forward as he lets Mikey go, and Mikey stumbles back, catching himself so he doesn't fall. It probably isn't even on purpose. He knows that. It doesn't matter.   
  
He shoves Gerard backwards, hard, and Gerard barely catches himself before he falls. "Fuck you," Gerard hisses, and lunges for him. They're not fighters, but Gerard claws when Mikey tries to push him off, leaving long red welts behind. Mikey kicks at him, gritting his teeth, shaking him off. He takes a step back and throws the first thing he grabs, a handful of Gerard's pens, and they bounce off Gerard's chest.   
  
"No, fuck  _you_." Mikey throws one of his boots, and it catches Gerard hard in the stomach. He curls in on himself, and Mikey throws the other. Gerard moves forward so fast Mikey doesn't have time to react, elbow around Mikey's neck. He's not strong enough to keep Mikey there for long, but he has a hold of Mikey's hair, pulling until Mikey's eyes water.   
  
"Fucking girl," Mikey hisses through clenched teeth, and then Gerard knees him in the balls. " _Fuck_." He goes down, just like that. The moment he has the strength to stand again he surges forward, fist colliding with Gerard's face, and Gerard hits the floor.   
  
There's blood on Mikey's knuckles. He collapses to the floor again, beside Gerard. Gerard's nose is bleeding. "Shit," he says softly. "Are you ok?" The fight has gone out of him, and now he just feels weak.   
  
"Don't think you broke my nose," Gerard offers, wincing as he pushes himself up into a sitting position. "Fuck."   
  
"We're fucked up," Mikey says, staring down at the blood on his knuckles. "What the hell happened to us?"  
  
Gerard shakes his head. "I don't know." He has one hand covering his nose, and he winces as he speaks. "This—thing, I guess. Everything that's been happening around us. I don't know how to describe it, it just  _is_. I just wish I knew if it was just us, or if there's something going on that's making us all crazy like this."  
  
"We're not crazy," Mikey says softly, picking at the fibers of the carpet. "You know we're not. Whatever's going on, it isn't because we're crazy."   
  
"Just because it's both of us doesn't mean we're not crazy," Gerard points out. "Crazy could run in the family, if it was selective crazy. Fuck, for all I know, it could be because we're not sleeping."   
  
"Yeah." Mikey looks over at him. "I'm sorry. I don't know what the fuck got into me." He rests a hand on Gerard's shoulder, thumb rubbing circles into his skin.   
  
"Got into me too."   
  
"I know. Still."   
  
Gerard looks up, a faint smile on his lips. "I'm sorry too. How about— Let's just both go. It's not like the studio's gonna blow up if one of us isn't here, and we aren't getting any work done anyway." He grabs the first black shirt he can find, holding it to his nose.   
  
"Once you stop bleeding," Mikey tells him, and then nods. "Okay. Might as well."   
  
"You still know how to get there?"  
  
Mikey shrugs. "Think so."   
  
"Giving me a whole lot of confidence here, Mikey," Gerard teases, and Mikey smiles. "For all I know, you're just trying to find a good way to get rid of me after you get us horribly lost."  
  
"You know all my evil plans," Mikey tells him, and gets up to find his boots. 


	3. Chapter 3

"So, you think Ray will be working there today?" Gerard asks, shutting the door behind them. Mikey pulls his hoodie tighter around himself and watches him fiddle with the lock. It's cold in the hallway, colder than he was expecting. He can't make himself stop fidgeting, nervous twitches that betray his calm exterior. Gerard can't quite manage to get the key to turn, and he's almost dropped it more than once.   
  
He's nervous too, but Mikey can't very well blame him for that.   
  
"Don't know," he answers, shifting from one foot to the other and then back again. "It looked like a small store, so he might be the only one who works there. Guess we'll find out, right?"   
  
Gerard makes a face. "I'd rather not."   
  
He finally manages to lock the door, turning back towards Mikey with a triumphant grin as he slips the key into his pocket. He nods to Mikey and the two of them set off towards the stairs, shoes squeaking against the tile.   
  
"I know," Mikey tells him as they open the door to the stairs. "But it's not like we can do anything about it if he's there."   
  
"We could scream and run," Gerard suggests hopefully, taking the stairs two at a time. "I'd like that."   
  
Mikey rolls his eyes, following behind him. "That's basically what I did last time."   
  
"Nothing wrong with doing it again. We could be the crazy brothers who come in and stare at the guy working there and scream a lot."   
  
"Well, I didn't actually  _scream_."   
  
Gerard shrugs, waiting on the step for Mikey to catch up. "I could scream then. For some variation."   
  
"Rather you didn't."   
  
The sky is clear when they make it out onto the street, and Mikey breathes in the fresh air, stepping in the fresh puddles on the sidewalk, wetness soaking through his boots. He's glad to have Gerard along, and he runs ahead and waits for Gerard to follow, glad to not be alone. There are still bright red scratches on his arm from their fight. He doesn't much care, and when Gerard gets close again, he reaches out a hand.   
"For when we cross the street," he says, and takes Gerard's hand.   
  
"How long until we have to?" Gerard asks, eyebrows raising, but he squeezes Mikey's hand anyhow.  
  
"A while." Mikey smiles because it feels almost necessary, with how things have been lately. If he forgets, he'll be even more fucked up. The sun is out and he's not alone, and if he sees Ray, he sees Ray. He at least knows what to expect this time.   
  
"You're all perky. Should I let you beat me up more often?"   
  
Mikey feels a twinge of guilt at that, but doesn't bother dwelling on it overmuch. "I think I'll be fine."   
  
Gerard shrugs. "If it works… Which way?"  
  
Mikey points down the street, and the two of them set off together, hand in hand. He can hear people whisper as he passes, knows what they think, but he doesn't care. The crowd pushes past, and only a few look up, the rest concentrating on other things. They trudge through the puddles, staring at the ground, splashing him as they walk, and he closes his eyes for a moment to take in the sounds. Everything seems too loud, now that he's out in it. It's been a while.   
  
"Hey, shit, you're gonna get yourself knocked over, open your eyes," Gerard says under his breath, squeezing his hand.   
  
"I'm fine," Mikey says peacefully, leading Gerard on down the cracked sidewalk. "We're almost to the bus stop, anyway."  
  
"You know, I know your eyes are bad, but you don’t have to pretend to be blind," Gerard tells him, grabbing onto his arm. Mikey opens his eyes. They're standing at an intersection, and the light's green.   
  
"Thanks," he offers sheepishly.  
  
Gerard smiles a little. "This the stop?" He points to the sign across the street and Mikey nods. "Try not to walk into traffic again."   
  
"Yeah, yeah."   
  


  
By the time they get to the repair shop, Mikey is a ball of nerves. His hands are shaking, and his gut twists when he sees the sign. "You sure I have to go in with you?" he asks, trying to keep his voice from quivering. He feels ridiculous, being afraid of this, but he can't stop the way he's reacting.   
  
"C'mon. For some moral support." Gerard motions for him to follow, taking a deep breath. "I mean, what's the worst that can happen? Maybe he'll—I don't know, recognize you, and ask if you're around somewhere else, or start hitting on you, or realize what he is and then—"  
  
"Hey. Gee. Breathe."   
  
"I'm breathing, I'm breathing."   
  
"Are not."   
  
Gerard doesn't argue, but he makes Mikey open the door. The bell jangles and Mikey stares at the ground as he walks in, praying  _please don't let it be him please don't let it be him._  
  
"Fuck," Gerard says, under his breath, and his hand squeezes painfully tight around Mikey's. Mikey doesn't need to look up. He knows what he'll see.   
  
"Oh, you're back," Ray says, looking up from the counter, and Mikey forces himself to look Ray in the eyes, even if it makes him feel like he wants to be sick. He didn't want to come along, but Gerard doesn't look much better, and someone had to. "Got it working. You should have come back sooner, I had it done in a day or two."   
  
"Sorry," Mikey mumbles. "Got kind of caught up in something. Gee, can you pay?"  
  
He lets go of Gerard's hand and walks out, whispering a "sorry" under his breath. He can't deal with this. Not right now.   
  
He leans against the outside of the store, lighting a cigarette with shaking hands. It doesn't help to calm him down, only worsening the nausea curling inside him. Deep breaths just make him cough. He hopes Gerard comes out soon.   
  
"Come on," Gerard says shakily. "Fuck. Let's get out of here." He has the laptop under one arm, and he rests the other on Mikey's shoulder, rubbing soothing circles. "I am never fucking coming back to this place again if I can help it. It's. Come on."   
  
Mikey nods, and they set off down the street together. "Worse than you thought?" he asks, rubbing at his temples as he walks.  
  
"Yeah. Definitely. Are you sure we're not dreaming?"  
  
"Pinch me."   
  
Gerard does.  
  
"Shit,  _ow_ , cut your nails. Yeah, we're awake."   
  
"Thought so." Gerard sighs, staring down at the ground.   
  
They walk on in silence, and Mikey counts the cracks in the sidewalk under their feet just to give his mind something to do. Gerard takes his hand and guides him and he follows mechanically, trying to calm his thudding heart. The cars rush by and one kicks up the water pooling at the sides of the street, soaking his jeans, and he doesn't react.   
  
"We never have to go back," Gerard reminds him, and he nods shallowly. As far as he's concerned, he'd very much like to hole up in the studio and never come out. The sooner they get back, the better.   
  
He isn't aware of much on the bus ride back, just the purr of the engine and a vague recognition of the chattering going on around him, picking up the speech but not the words. He stares out the window, mindlessly taking in a blur of streets and houses and people walking by. The bus screeches to a halt and he snaps out of his daze. In that instant, he sees it.  
  
There's a familiar face in the crowd going by. The man himself isn't what Mikey notices first; he has nearly two dozen dogs with him, and he's leading them all down the sidewalk, or more correctly, they're leading him, dragging him along behind them.   
  
Mikey blinks twice, pinches himself, and yet he can't deny that he sees it.   
  
Frank.  
  
"Fuck," he mutters, glaring at nothing in particular. Frank is standing on the sidewalk outside of the bus, and Mikey can't make him go away, no matter how much he wills it. His dogs pay no notice to the people around him, and Mikey has one brief, frightened second where he thinks that no one else knows that they're there. Like he's the guy in A Beautiful Mind and he has people in his head that don't exist, walking around in everyday life like they belong there.   
  
He frowns. He knows what Frank's dogs look like. He knows every one of them, and one of them looks almost out of place. A quick count, and he freezes. There aren't eighteen anymore; there are nineteen.   
  
"Hey, dude, come on, this is our stop," Gerard says, shaking him. Mikey turns to face him and when he looks back, Frank is gone.  
  
He gets up numbly and doesn't say a word until he gets back to the apartment, stubbornly repeating  _I'm not crazy_  to himself the whole way, like if he says it enough it'll make it true.   
  
"Guess who I saw?" he says as soon as Gerard closes the door.  
  
"Who?"  
  
Mikey laughs a little, a hollow, humorless sound. "Frank."  
  
"You—what?" Gerard asks, settling down on the couch with a thump. "Are you sure?"  
  
"Completely. Um. Gee?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"… How many dogs does Frank have, now?"  
  
"Nineteen, why?"  
  
"How many did he have when you saw him?" Mikey asks, and the color begins to drain from Gerard's face like he's starting to catch on to what that means.  
  
"Eighteen."  
  
"And we changed that in the comic, right? Used to be eighteen?"  
  
"… Yeah. We made it nineteen, because we added a new one last week when he—oh. Oh shit. _Shit._ " Gerard stares at Mikey with wide eyes. "Tell me he didn't—he doesn't—"  
  
Mikey nods. "He's got nineteen now. In real life. Could be just coincidence, but—"  
  
He doesn't need to finish. Gerard knows what it's implying. The thought is terrifying, makes Mikey feel crazier than he already does just for thinking it.  
  
What they're writing is actually happening.  
  
"So if we. Mikey, that doesn't make sense. You can't just—reality doesn't work like that."  
  
"They're our characters," Mikey reminds him. "Maybe we can control what they do, what happens to them, since we created them."  
  
"At least if it's just them," Gerard mutters, and then he goes pale. "Wait. Fuck. Mikey. Mikey, what if it isn't just Frank and Ray?"  
  
"I don't think Bob's gonna be that much of a problem," Mikey mutters. "Just don't make out with him when you meet him. I'm still not sure if they're real or not, you might destroy the world by doing it."   
  
Gerard shakes his head furiously. "Mikey. We're writing about Bob  _hunting down a demon_  and what we're writing about is happening. Think about it."   
  
"… Oh, fuck." Mikey looks around the room like he's expecting a demon to be lurking in the corners. "Good point."   
  
He sits down on the couch beside Gerard, knees tucked to his chest, still glancing around worriedly. He knows if there was something he would have noticed already, but he can't help feeling unsettled, not with the thought that if Frank and Ray are real now, so is what they're hunting.   
  
"You know," he says, frowning, "if the demon was real, wouldn't we have noticed?"   
  
"I don't know, would we?" Gerard questions, pausing to think. "There would be—in the comic we had signs and that's how they noticed."   
  
"Little things," Mikey recites, closing his eyes. "Things you wouldn't notice at first. Freak storms, things Bob sees that he shouldn't, omens." He knows that clear as day, because he's had a piece of paper next to him the whole time he's been writing, saying just that. "Visions. That kind of thing."   
  
"I haven't been seeing any visions," Gerard offers, and Mikey lets himself nod for a moment, but then—  
  
 _The dream comes rushing back to him all at once, storms and blood and chaos, walking down a dark street only illuminated by lightning splitting the sky, the mind-numbing panic of _I can't find Gerard_ , coming face to face with something else entirely, something with bright, glowing eyes and a body so twisted, so contorted—_  
  
"What about nightmares?" he asks quietly, and he can feel Gerard freeze. He's been having them, and so has Gerard, ever since they started, and they both know it.   
  
"You think those—" Gerard asks, staring at him. "Ours both started when we started writing this one. Fuck. Oh, fuck."   
  
 _"Shit, Gerard, if you've been having nightmares this whole time too, the least you could have done was _tell_  me so. Don't you think it's weird?"_  
  
"It's not coincidence," Mikey manages, nodding. He's torn between wanting to hide in the corner and wanting to scream, because none of this is  _right_. "And we've had freak storms, too. Earlier, when it was raining every day."   
  
 _"It pretty much has." Mikey looks out at the sky, still dark and foreboding, and he shivers. The storm has made things cold, and even his bones feel chilled. "Freak storm. Guess that's August for you, though."_  
  
"And," he continues, because he can't even stop the words from coming out anymore, "and I saw something else too. The time I told you I ran home because a cat was going to attack me. It wasn't the cat. Something was following me. I couldn't get a glimpse of it because it was moving too fast, but it scared the cat away and I know whatever it was, it wasn't a person, and—" His head is buzzing, and he curls further into himself, fear winding its way through him.  
  
 _It's as he turns around to go back the way he came that he sees it. Just out of the corner of his eye, something moving past him, fast enough to be nothing but a dark blur. His head whips around, but there is nothing there, and he swallows hard, staring at the empty street._  
  
Gerard's right.  
  
They have a demon on their hands and they're the ones who summoned it.   
  


  
  
The next day is a haze. They bolt the door and prop a chair in front of it and Mikey turns off his phone and takes out the battery, just to be safe. If there were curtains, he'd pull them shut. They don't write. They don't draw.   
  
And they definitely, definitely don't turn on the laptop. Mikey isn't even sure they can, isn't sure if Ray actually fixed it or not. He doesn't much care. The deadlines will catch up with them eventually, but the longer they can put off writing more, changing what's already happened, the better.  
  
He lays on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, listening to music. His bones are starting to ache from staying in the same position so long, but he doesn't want to move and get up. Gerard has just been pacing back and forth, smoking, and the whole room reeks of it. The air is hazy.  
  
"Brian's going to be pissed at us," he says quietly, picking at the dirt under his nails. He isn't even sure Gerard will hear him; he's thinking out loud more than anything else, like he'll forget how to speak if he doesn't.   
  
"I know," Gerard says, pitching it louder to be heard over Mikey's music. "Don't care."  
  
"This isn't gonna go away."   
  
"I know." Gerard resumes his pacing, having paused for a moment to speak. It's raining outside again, drops spattering against the glass, and Mikey wishes the heat wasn't broken. He shivers, pulling the blankets over himself, and lets himself close his eyes for a little while. His eyelids are heavy, and he drifts in and out of consciousness, not sleeping but not aware of anything that's happening around him. It's day, then night, then day again, and Gerard goes from pacing to sleeping by his side to pacing again.   
  
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a few hours later, he notices that Gerard tries to turn the laptop on, and he forces himself to sit up and watch. "Is it working?" he asks, watching Gerard scowl at the power button.  
  
Gerard shakes his head and presses it again. This time, it lights up, and he breathes out a sigh of relief. "Guess he fixed it after all. Good thing you write him to be smart, right?"  
  
"Something like that," Mikey mutters.   
  
"We've got… wow." Gerard stares at the screen, and Mikey doesn't bother getting out of bed, because he has a feeling he already knows what's coming. "Brian's emailed us ten times already."   
  
Mikey shakes his head. "Ignore it. I'm going back to sleep."   
  
He drifts out of consciousness again.  
  


  
  
Sometime later that day, or maybe the next, there's a knock at the door.  
  
Mikey sits bolt upright, staring. His heart's thudding in his chest and Gerard is standing stock-still by the window, staring at the door like he's expecting it to attack them. Neither of them make a move to answer it.   
  
Another knock.  
  
There's a pause, and then they hear, "Guys, seriously, open up. It's me. You're not dead, right?" It sounds like Pete, but Mikey's not about to take his chances. For all he knows, it could be the demon masquerading as Pete.  
  
He knows how insane that sounds. It doesn't matter.  
  
"Mikey, you should at least answer your phone. Come on, dude, it's not funny anymore. If I fucked up or something, you've gotta tell me, just don't leave me hanging like this. You're okay, right?"  
  
Mikey hears the sound of him trying to turn the lock, but the bolt is in and the chair's up against the door, and it doesn't budge. He's glad of it.   
  
"Jesus Christ, you guys," Pete mutters. "I'll come back when you're done playing dead."   
  
His retreating steps are obvious in the silence, and Mikey lets out a sigh of relief, lying back down onto the pillows.   
  
"Um." Gerard gives him a look, eyebrows raised, and Mikey resists the urge to remind him he wasn't about to open the door either.  
  
"Could have been the demon," he points out, a little shaky, and he closes his eyes. "I was just being safe."   
  
Gerard nods and keeps pacing, over and over until Mikey is dizzy from watching him. Mikey's stomach growls and he curls in on himself, trying to fight the feeling. They're already out of food, even if he did get up to get some, and he doesn't want to get up.   
  
"We have to stop doing this," he says finally. "I don't want to work either, but doing nothing and hiding in here isn't going to do much good."  
  
"You're the one who won't even let Pete in because you think he's a demon," Gerard points out.  
  
"I know. But—later. Let's go out, get some food at least. I just didn't want to let it in here."  
  
Gerard hesitates. "Um." A long pause, and then finally, "Okay. Later."   
  


  
  
Later turns out to be a day and a half later.  
  
They haven't done anything. Mikey is still in bed, and Gerard's still pacing back and forth, and by the time either of them get up, night has already fallen and a chill has settled into the air. Mikey searches under the bed for his hoodie, pulling it tight to him to ward off the sudden shock of cold air as he gets up from under the covers. "Where do you want to go?" he asks, fighting with the zipper.   
  
"Don't care." Gerard shrugs. "Somewhere close, I guess? We'll probably be safer that way."   
  
They haven't talked about it since Pete left, but nothing needs to be said; Mikey knows that they're not safe every time they venture outside the studio, and probably not while they're in it, either. Sticking together and staying close is the only thing they can do. That is, other than what they've already done—there's an awkward cross, burned into the back of the door with Gerard's lighter, and maybe it won't do anything, but it's better than just hoping they won't get possessed.   
  
"There's a new bar down the street, I think," Mikey says, tugging on his boots. "It's better than nothing, and it probably has food."   
  
"Good. I'm starved." Gerard glances at the door warily, lighting another cigarette. He holds his hands away from Mikey, but Mikey knows they're shaking.  
  
"Me too. And you've been walking back and forth for the past three days, it's not like that's helping you any."   
  
Gerard nods. "I know, but it helps." He finally searches for his own shoes, taking so long Mikey's afraid he's going to suggest Mikey should go out alone.   
  
"Whatever works, I guess. Come on."   
  
"I don't want to go," Gerard says quietly, looking down at the ground and his half-tied laces. "Can't we—I don't know. Pete could bring us food, right?"   
  
"Not after we didn't let him in," Mikey points out, walking over to Gerard. He rests a hand on Gerard's shoulder, not meeting his eyes when he looks up. "We've gotta go unless you want to die in here, and I know I don't."   
  
Gerard shakes his head. "I don't. Doesn't mean I have to like it."   
  
"I don't either. We're not—anything could happen, but if we stay, we're gonna starve to death."   
  
"Alright. I'll go."   
  
"Thanks," Mikey murmurs. "If I went alone, you wouldn't get me back in one piece. At least we can be pieces together if something happens."   
  
"That's comforting," Gerard says shakily, but he pulls himself to his feet. "Should we—maybe we should call Momma. Make sure she's okay."   
  
Mikey hesitates, glancing at his phone at the other side of the room. It's still off and the battery is still out, and he doesn't know what to expect when he turns it back on. He doesn't want to face up to the responsibilities they're ignoring right now. Not yet. He's not ready yet. Right now, he just needs to go have a damn drink and forget about it. It's not the healthiest response. He doesn't care.   
  
"Are you sure it wouldn't put her in more danger?" he asks, frowning.   
  
"We could die out there. We would die and she would never know. I can't—we can't do that."   
  
"We're not safe in here either."   
  
"Safer."   
  
Gerard is looking at him with pleading eyes, and Mikey finally breaks. "Okay," he mumbles, crossing the room to turn his phone back on. He ignores the texts from Pete, the ones from Brian (how the guy ever got his number in the first place is a mystery to him, but he doesn't question that Brian can have freaky powers at times), the ones from every other person he talks to. He hands the phone to Gerard without another word.   
  
A long pause, and then the sound of the dial. Gerard frowns, and Mikey can tell he's gotten the answering machine. He's a little glad of it. The last thing he wants to deal with right now is explaining what's happening to them.   
  
"Hey, Momma?" Gerard begins, shifting from one foot to the other. "It's Gerard. Mikey and I are—I can't really talk about it, and it wouldn't make any sense, but we're ok for now, and we love you, alright? Mikey, come here." He motions Mikey over.  
  
"Yeah," Mikey adds, swallowing hard because his mouth is suddenly bone-dry, "we're ok. Love you. Don't burn down the house or anything. And tell Dad that too. That we love him. Don't forget, ok? Um. Bye."   
  
Gerard closes the phone and the sound is oddly loud in the silence. He looks at Mikey, opening his mouth, but no words come out, and Mikey just nods. He takes the phone and taps out a message to Pete before he can convince himself it's a bad idea: "ok for now. Stay gold."   
  
Neither of them mention that it feels like they're saying goodbye for good. Mikey hopes he isn't.   
  


  
  
They run all the way to the bar, pushing through the crowds on the sidewalk, and by the time they make it, they're panting for breath. The bar's small, just a hole-in-the wall place with dim lighting and only a few tables. They sit down at the end of the bar, as far away from the door as possible. It's not any safer, but it's warm and a little hazy inside, like the studio, and it's comforting.  
  
"What can I get you guys?" the bartender asks, and Mikey looks up.  
  
He stares, and beside him, he can feel Gerard freeze up as he looks up, too.  
  
"Shit," he mutters, because if there was anything he didn't need, it was to see anyone  _else_  that was a familiar face. Too familiar.  
  
Bob's face, to be specific.   
  
"Um." He opens his mouth to order something, some food at least, but the words won't come out. "Gerard, can you order something for me? I'll be in the bathroom."   
  
Gerard watches him desperately as he leaves, but he can't go back just yet. He closes the bathroom door with a thud, bracing himself against the sink because he doesn't think he can stand up otherwise. His reflection in the mirror is wild, eyes bloodshot and dark-circled. He feels like he's going to be sick again, and this time he is, can't stop himself from heaving. He can't do this.   
  
There's food waiting for him when he comes back, and even the sight of it turns his stomach. "Eat," Gerard says quietly as he settles back onto the stool, squeezing his hand. "It's helping. Just. Don't think about it."   
  
He leaves then, too, and Mikey knows he's doing no better. He gulps down his drink so fast it makes his throat burn, not even registering what it is because Bob's still standing at the counter like he belongs there, watching him with curious eyes. He and Gerard are the only ones in the bar so there's nothing else for him to focus on, and he wishes Gerard would get back already.   
  
"You look like hell," Bob tells him, taking his glass. Mikey nods in its general direction and he refills it, and Mikey is grateful to have Bob's eyes off him for the moment. "You and him both."   
  
"I know," Mikey says quietly, resisting the urge he can feel in every muscle in his body, the one telling him to run. He barely tastes the food he's putting into his mouth, bringing it to his mouth mechanically until he hears the sound of the bathroom door closing and Gerard comes back. His glass is empty again and he's almost startled by it, not even remembering drinking it.  
  
"You wanna go?" Gerard says into his ear, and Mikey nods, grateful to have Gerard there.   
  
"Yeah," he agrees, nodding. "Let's go."   
  
He doesn't remember leaving, either, or Gerard paying, but he knows both must have happened, because the next thing he's aware of is standing in the street as raindrops start to fall again. They run through the drops, boots kicking up the water of the puddles, and by the time they get back to the studio they're both soaked through to the skin.   
  
They don't notice anything's wrong until they open the door.   
  


  
The window is broken, shattered into a thousand tiny shards of glass scattered across the floor. The cold outside wind is blowing in, and the raindrops spatter against the curling wallpaper. There's no tree branch, no stone left from someone throwing one, nothing to explain what happened.   
  
"Did—" Gerard just stares, frozen in the doorway. Leaving didn't work, but neither will staying. The cross on the door did nothing, and the window is broken, and Mikey doesn't even feel safe in the studio anymore. He isn't sure where is safe, even.   
  
"We can't stay here," he says helplessly, staring at the shards of glass.   
  
Gerard nods his agreement. "What. Shit, what do we  _do_?" He takes a step backwards like he wants to just leave, but there's nowhere to go.   
  
"I don't know," Mikey admits.   
  
"We have to think of something. Ignoring it—you were right. Ignoring it isn't gonna make everything go away. Fuck. We should—let's just go back to the apartment. It's still safe there."   
  
"And then it'll come to the apartment," Mikey points out. "It'll be us, not the windows. I. What if—" He hesitates, not sure if what he's saying even makes any sense.   
  
"What?"  
  
"Gee, if what's happening with what we write actually happens, then we have to finish writing it. We have to write the ending or it'll keep going on for us too."   
  
"How does it end?" Gerard asks quietly, glancing over at him.  
  
"I don't know. I hadn't—I haven't figured that out yet," Mikey admits, staring at the ground.   
  
"We're fucked," Gerard groans. "So, so fucked," and all Mikey can do is nod. Gerard's right. If they don't end this, there's nothing they can do to escape it anymore. It knows where they work. It knows where they sleep.  
  
They have to do this.  
  


  
  
The best they can do for the time being is sweep up the glass and try to block the windows. They don't have anything to do it with, but the shower curtain at least blocks the rain that's still pounding down. It takes an hour, and then Gerard looks up at Mikey and nods, tossing him the first pen he sees.   
  
"Get writing. We're gonna figure this out."   
  
Mikey nods. Gerard is taking care of what he needs to, scanning in everything so they can move on, and he has a job to do. It's going to save them both, if he's betting right, and he writes furiously, barely-readable scribbles on the paper in front of him. He barely even stops to breathe.  
  
"So, okay," he says to Gerard, not looking up, not stopping the frantic movements of his pen, "Bob figures it out because Ray's been following the news and he has to trace it back, we've got that, he finds out that it's some kids that summoned it by accident because they were playing with a spell book and trying to be cool and shit, at some bonfire they were having, I've got that. And we've gotta tell Brian that the words we sent him for that have to change, because that's—"   
  
"You really think we actually summoned the demon with that?" Gerard asks, staring at the computer screen. "I mean, the site I got the words from looked really fucking sketchy, but still."   
  
"Had to be," Mikey says, nodding. "Doesn't make sense any other way."   
  
"Yeah. Probably. Okay, dude, so then he has to go find the demon somehow, probably by tracking down who all the dead kids are and going from there, and exorcise it. Do you want me to go to the site and see if I can find out how to reverse it? I mean, if one half works, I'm guessing the other will too. Let's just hope they have the words for it."   
  
"Yeah. I don't know if it'll work if it's out of order with the writing, like, if we, I don’t know, wrote it out on a piece of paper right now, I don't think it would do anything, but I'm almost to there, so we're good."   
  
Gerard still has the site from last time bookmarked, and he frowns as he looks at the page. "This thing actually summoned a fucking demon? I mean, really? It doesn’t look that impressive. It's all pixilated and shit. Just our luck to find the one place that has a working spell, right?"   
  
"Luck, yeah," Mikey snorts.   
  
"I know, I know," Gerard mutters, clicking. "Think I found something. What do you think?" He motions Mikey over and Mikey peers over his shoulder at the screen. There are words there that say they're for reversing a summoning, and Mikey just hopes they're right. They  _look_  ok, but he knows nothing about it; he wouldn't bet his life on it and he has to.   
  
"It'll work," he says finally, nodding. "Write down what it says for me?"   
  
"Alright. How's Bob going to find the demon?" Gerard asks, looking between the scrap of paper in front of him and the screen. "Not like he's just going to walk in and find it at a bar."   
  
One side of Mikey's mouth quirks up. "What, like we did with him?" The shock of that is still new, and it's strange to be joking about it already, but if he's right, if Gerard's right, once they finish this will all be over and seeing Bob won't mean anything at all.   
  
Gerard shrugs. "Yeah. So—maybe he could summon it, or go to some place where he knew it would be, or—"  
  
"I don’t really know," Mikey admits. "Probably goes to the place where it is. Follows the trail, like. I don't know, dude, maybe there's a place where all the dead kids went, something shared that he can go to, right?"  
  
"Yeah, maybe." Gerard hands him the scrap of paper and starts sorting through the rest of the pages he has drawn and inked already. They have to go faster, and it's a race to the finish line, a finish line they're praying Brian isn't going to hold them back on. He has to be there so they don't have to wait. Has to, because if the broken glass shards still glittering on the carpet are any indication, they're not safe here and the longer they have to stay, the more risk there is of something happening.   
  
Mikey's okay with that, in a detached, 'oh god we're going to die if we don't hurry up' sort of way. It feels a little like the week before final exams at school.  
  
"Yeah. I'll go with that." His pen moves furiously down the page, scribbling out what he's sure is the worst script he's ever written, but it doesn't matter right now. "And then he summons it, or calls it out, or whatever, I don't know what to call it exactly, and traps it, and all of that."  
  
"And exorcises it," Gerard reminds him, not looking over. "If you forget to have him exorcise it so we still have to deal with it I am kicking your ass."   
  
"If you do I'm getting Momma to beat you up for me," Mikey says peacefully, and hands him a page to type out. "I'm going to, don't worry."   
  
Gerard nods at him, taking the page. He's not a fast typer, but he's better than Mikey, even if he has to stare down at the keys to not make it full of typos. It has to be at least decent, if Brian's going to be looking at it.   
  
Mikey pauses.  _Brian._  
  
He takes out his phone and taps his way over to contacts. Brian doesn't pick up his phone right away, and Mikey crosses the fingers of his other hand, but then there's a hesitant "… hello?" and the sound of breathing on the other side.  
  
"It's your team," Mikey says dryly.   
  
"You mean the one that's going to be dead meat if you keep ignoring my calls?" Brian asks, voice a little too pleasant for comfort, and Mikey fidgets in his chair.   
  
"… Um. About that. Yeah. No, we're working on it right now. We're trying to finish it all in one go, but we kind of need you to be editing as we go if we're gonna do that."   
  
"Yeah, fine," Brian says, and Mikey can practically hear his eyebrows raising. "Have you guys been dead or what, anyway? Not answering any calls, any emails, I was about to come and knock down your goddamn door to see if you had anything done or if you'd gotten arrested or something."   
  
"What would  _we_  get arrested  _for_?"   
  
Mikey barely catches a snip of Brian's words, muttered under his breath, '—your smell—' and then Brian says, louder, "I don't know, something. Either way. So you need me to save your ass because you've been procrastinating?"  
  
"I can't really explain it," Mikey says, going back to writing as he talks. "Long story. But we need to finish it as soon as possible and it'd be in before the deadline, if you helped us out with that." He knows Brian will go for it, especially with the promise of having things in  _early_  for once, because that happens roughly as often as the sky rains kittens.   
  
"Fine, send me what you've got," Brian says, and hangs up without another word. Mikey grins, setting the phone down. It doesn't take him long before he finishes the second page, handing it to Gerard. Gerard has the first one propped up against the screen, frowning at it as he tries to type out the words as fast as he can, alternating between using both hands and getting the letters wrong and picking out the letters with two fingers.   
  
"Slowpoke," Mikey teases.   
  
"You'd only be able to do it if you could type on here with your thumbs, texting boy," Gerard mutters, face inches from the screen.   
  
"I should try it sometime. So, okay, what happens once he exorcises it, anyway?"  
  
"He goes and does stuff?" Gerard shrugs. "I mean, do we have to have a deep and meaningful ending? Make him talk to one of the kids that survived and call them idiots or something, but in a more subtle way. People like that shit."   
  
"Moral of the story: don't read weird shit you find in books," Mikey informs no one in particular, and then glances over at Gerard. "Or on shady websites."   
  
"It was so not my fault that I accidentally found a site with shit that worked, fucker, don't give me that look."   
  
Mikey quirks an eyebrow at him. "Sure, sure," he says under his breath. "Suuuure."   
  


  
  
It takes them exactly—and Mikey times it—nine hours to finish the whole thing. By the time he finishes scrawling out the last page, his wrists hurt and his vision is blurry. His back aches from sitting at the desk the entire time, his feet are asleep, and if he has to think about anything else involving Bob for the next week or three, he is probably going to scream.   
  
He doesn't have to, and he's glad of it. Gerard scans the last page with a grin, emailing it off to the colorist, Shawn, and when the message sends Mikey can't resist doing victory fingers.   
  
"I am going to sleep," Gerard declares, rubbing his ink-stained hands together. "We just finished about a month ahead of schedule for the last bit, I am taking a goddamn nap. For a month."   
  
"Have fun, coma boy," Mikey says, waving him off. He leans back in his chair, sighing deeply. He doesn't know if anything's going to change, but he's hoping so. If he has to go around with a cross around his neck he can do it, but things feel different. The air feels lighter. He picks up his phone, finally checking the messages for the first time in what seems like days.   
  
The first (and second, and third, and fourth, and so on) is from Pete. They're progressively more worried, going from "i'm not ponyboy" to "you dont sound very ok" to "mikeyway please dont be dead" to "you never told me what i should do for your funeral" to "I miss you already come back I wouldnt mind if you were a zombie i promise."   
  
Mikey glances over at Gerard. He's sleeping already, snoring softly, and his arms are wrapped around Mikey's pillow. It's too late to call, so all he can do is send Pete a message: 'not dead. You should come by in the morning though in case G's snoring kills me in the night though just saying. things are ok.'  
  
With that, he snaps his phone shut and crawls into bed beside Gerard, tugging his pillow back from the clutch of Gerard's arms. He makes a face and gives it a good yank and Gerard finally lets it go, making a muffled, vaguely protesting sound in his sleep.  
  
Mikey hits the pillow with a satisfied sigh, eyes closing the minute he lays his head down. He's done. They're done. Everything they can do to fix what's been happening, they've done.   
  
He doesn't think anything will happen in the night, or at least, he's hoping so. He wants to be in one piece when Pete comes by in the morning and he closes his eyes, waiting for sleep to take him.   
  


  
  
The first thing he realizes in the morning is that he's alive. He's in one piece. And—most of all, he didn't wake up during the night, and he didn't have a nightmare. He lets that sink in for a moment and then grins, starting small and ending up so wide it hurts. "Gerard," he says, shaking Gerard awake. "Hey. Wake up. Come on."   
  
"Whazzit?" Gerard mumbles, cracking one eye open.  
  
"Did you have a nightmare?" Mikey asks, and he can feel Gerard physically stop and think about it.  
  
"… no," Gerard says, after a moment's hesitation, eyes wide. "Oh, shit, no. You're right." He grins too and then yanks Mikey against him for a hug. Mikey's startled by it but doesn't protest, still grinning like a fool.   
  
"Does that mean we did it?" he asks, hoping upon hope it does.  
  
"Think so?" Gerard says hesitantly. "I mean, probably. I hope so. I mean, fuck, if that's all it took—"  
  
Just as he says that, they hear the sound of the key turning in the lock. This time, the door isn't bolted, and there's no chair there, so the door swings open, and Pete walks in.  
  
"Um," he says, staring at the two of them, and Mikey is suddenly very, very aware that they happen to be hugging while in bed. In the same bed.   
  
"Not a word," he mutters, letting Gerard go and getting up. "It's not—well, you already know that, shut up."   
  
"I know," Pete says cheerily. "I just wanted to see you get all red." He grabs Mikey around the waist and squeezes, and Mikey is starting to wonder why everyone is deciding to spontaneously hug him today, but he doesn't protest. Much.   
  
"You're  _alive_ ," Pete tells him, sounding almost reverent, and Mikey blinks.  
  
"Uh, yeah, I'm not rotting or anything, pretty sure I'm alive. Unless you're hugging a corpse and that's creepy, dude, for real."   
  
"You told me to stay gold and then didn't answer your phone for almost a week," Pete points out, making a face at him. "What was I supposed to think? I thought your crazy not-sleeping made you jump off a building or something. I kept watching the news waiting for someone to talk about the Mikeyway pancake."   
  
"Here and alive," Mikey assures him. "Not squashed to death on the pavement somewhere, or eaten by zombies, or drowned, or anything. And I got some sleep."   
  
"Good." Pete grins again. "You're still a stick, though, will your crazy editor dude come gut me if I take you out for some food? And I guess I could bring along that one crazy dude you hang around with, what's his name again?"   
  
"I have sharp pens," Gerard calls from the bed. "Don't even."   
  
"Crazy and armed. Definitely bringing him along so he doesn't kill me for not," Pete says, nodding and keeping a watchful eye out on Gerard out of the corner of his eye. "But seriously, is it gonna be an issue?"   
  
"No?" Mikey shrugs. "We're actually, um. A month ahead of schedule. Want to just go to that one place down the street? New one."   
  
Pete frowns. "There's no new place down the street."   
  
"Nice one, dude, but no, seriously. Little bar? Called the Dirty Dog?"   
  
"I'm not joking," Pete says, looking at him oddly. "I've never heard of that place and I haven't heard anybody talking about it, either."   
  
Mikey glances at Gerard, frowning, and then back to Pete. "You sure?"  
  
"Positive."   
  
Mikey flounders for a moment, unsure of just about everything, and finally offers, "Let's just order something for here. Pizza maybe."   
  
"Sounds good," Pete says agreeably, but he's still giving Mikey a strange look out of the corner of his eye as he gets out his phone.  
  


  
  
Gerard and Mikey don't talk about it until Pete's safely left and they're sure he's out of earshot. They shoot each other glances the entire time, but glances can only say so much, and when Pete closes the door behind him, Gerard lets out a sigh of relief.  
  
"Do you think he's bullshitting?" he asks, finally, and Mikey frowns.  
  
"Maybe? I don't think he'd lie about something like that. He seemed kind of freaked that we thought there was something there."   
  
"No way it got closed down since the last time we went there, " Gerard points out. "We were there what, three days ago?"  
  
Mikey nods and then goes still. "Unless it never existed to begin with," he says under his breath, knowing it sounds crazy, but he doesn't know what else to think, because nothing else makes any sense.  
  
Gerard hesitates. "We went in there, and we ate in there, and we drank in there, Mikey, that's not something you can make up with your mind and have it be real enough. Like when you're dreaming, you can't taste the food you're eating. Doesn't work like that."   
  
"No," Mikey agrees, and then hesitates again. "You know, the computer was being weird for me earlier. We should take it back to Ray, see if he can do anything with it." It's partly true, and partly because Mikey wants to test a little. Just to see what's changed.   
  
"Okay," Gerard says finally. "Get your boots on, we've got a trip to make."   
  


  
  
Mikey's heart pounds the entire bus ride. He doesn't know what's going to happen or what he's going to see. While it's a little easier to deal with when the sun is out and it's bright and warm, when the chatter of the people around him doesn't drill into his skull, when things are—or should be—back to normal, there's still a low curl of worry in his gut. There's doubt at the back of his mind, telling him that things aren't over, and as soon as he gets back to the studio, it's gong to be gone.   
  
"Hey, don't worry about it," Gerard says quietly, watching him and looking out the window at the same time. He squeezes Mikey's hand and presses his cheek against the glass, soaking up the sunlight, and when he pulls away, there's a white mark on the window. He grins and writes a 'hi' on it, like he and Mikey used to do when they were kids. Mikey grins and leans over him to breathe on the window so he can write a 'dork' beside it.   
  
They go back and forth and Mikey's caught off-guard when the bus finally screeches to a halt and announces their stop. He gets up with shaky legs, the nervousness intensifying. Once he's out of the bus for a moment, he just stops and stands on the sidewalk, eyes closed, not wanting to move.   
  
"This is gonna be okay, right?" he asks Gerard, and Gerard nods, taking his hand and leading him on, like before.  
  
"It's ok. We're gonna do this."   
  
Mikey stares at the pavement, counting the cracks in it as he walks. He tries not to step on them, just in case. He needs all the good luck he can get right now.   
  
"Hey," Gerard says after a moment, coming to a stop, "wasn't it over here?"   
  
Mikey looks up. They're standing in front of what should be a familiar shape, but it's not a computer repair shop. The shop doesn't look like it's been used for months, a boarded-up convenience store with bars over the windows and scattered debris and trash at the steps. One of the windows is smashed in, and Mikey stares at it, letting go of Gerard's hand to walk towards it, step by step.   
  
"This is the place," he says, absolutely sure of what he's saying.  
  
"But—"   
  
Mikey turns to face him. "I'm sure. Trust me."   
  
They both stare at it in silence, and Mikey looks in the window, just to be sure. It's dark and dingy inside, and the shelves are empty, long –since cleaned out. There are a few newspapers on the floor, newspapers and candy wrappers, and among the debris, something catches Mikey's eye. The bright pages of a comic with too-familiar characters are printed on it, and in the panel he sees a man with curly hair, standing behind a computer with an intent expression on his face. He has a tool kit sitting on the counter beside him, and Mikey recognizes Gerard's handiwork in every inch of it.   
  
"Hey," Mikey says quietly, motioning Gerard over. "Guess what? I found Ray."   
  
"What?" Gerard hurries over and looks in, looks where Mikey is pointing. "But that's—" He turns and stares at Mikey.   
  
Mikey smiles. "I know."   
  
"Does that mean—"   
  
A quick nod, and Mikey takes Gerard's hand again, leading him on down the street. Neither of them look back at the store behind them or the desolation of it. They walk back the way they came, facing the bright morning sun, and Mikey lets out a deep, calming breath.   
  
"Yeah. It's over."   
  
They've won. 


End file.
